Why do some team members take part in training programs with enthusiasm while others experience them as a waste of time?
\nWhy, despite investing in courses and upskilling, do so many behaviors at work stay the same?
\nIs the problem really training, or the way it is perceived and experienced inside the company?
\nTraining is often considered one of the most important tools for helping people grow and improving business results.
\nAnd yet it doesn't always produce the desired effects.
\nSome people avoid every learning opportunity, some take part only because they have to, and some, on the contrary, attend course after course without turning what they have learned into real change.
\nIn these cases the problem is neither the availability of training programs nor the number of hours devoted to learning.
\nUnderneath there is often a deeper resistance, which leads people to see training as an obligation, a waste of time or an activity with no concrete use.
\nUnderstanding how this resistance arises and which mechanisms feed it lets you tackle the problem differently: not by trying to convince people to train, but by creating the conditions for them to recognize its value themselves and seek it out as an opportunity to grow.
\nResistance to training is a very common problem in companies.
\nHowever, before understanding its causes, one fundamental point needs to be clear: resisting courses and resisting training are not the same thing.
\nVery often training is identified with attending a course, reading a manual or studying new topics. In reality these are only tools.
\nTraining is something more: it is the process through which a person changes the way they think, work, communicate and deal with problems.
\nThat's why it is possible to attend many courses without really training, just as it is possible to train outside the classroom, through discussion, experimentation and applying what you have learned.
\nResistance, then, doesn't show up only as a refusal to take part in training programs.
\nIt can also take the opposite form, less obvious but just as harmful: constantly attending courses without turning the knowledge acquired into concrete change.
\nDoing no training at all or doing it to the point of exhaustion are, therefore, two sides of the same problem.
\nResistance to training can show up in different ways, often very different from one another:
\nThe most obvious form is the person who avoids every training opportunity.
\nIn many companies, most training activities coincide with mandatory or funded training. This easily leads people to associate training with compulsory schooling: you attend because you have to, not because you want to learn.
\nWhen participation comes from an obligation, the attitude tends to be passive. People are there because they have to be, with no real intention of learning.
\nIn these settings, even the instructors may show little engagement or not always have the necessary skills, further feeding the idea that training is of little use.
\nSome team members attend courses only because they feel they can't turn down a request from their manager.
\nParticipation is therefore about pleasing someone, not about meeting a personal need to grow. From the start, the course is seen as something of little use, and the time spent in class simply becomes time to get through, with no real learning goal.
\nWithout that intentionality, training is unlikely to produce change.
\nThen there is an even subtler form of resistance.
\nSome people agree to attend the course with the implicit goal of proving they were right to consider it useless.
\nThe attitude is superficial: they barely follow, they trivialize the topics, they take part without engagement. By the end of the program the outcome is already written: \"I went to the course, but just as I expected, it was useless.\"
\nThey are not trying to learn, but to confirm a belief they already hold.
\nExcess can also become a form of resistance.
\nSome team members would attend courses all the time, read books and seek out new knowledge, but not with the goal of evolving.
\nThe purpose becomes accumulating information: knowing more and more, being able to teach others, appearing better prepared, or simply expanding their store of knowledge.
\nIn this case knowledge becomes an end in itself.
\nTraining, however, is not meant to accumulate notions.
\nIt is meant to produce change.
\nIf what you learn doesn't change the way you work, your habits, your skills or your behaviors, you are not training, only accumulating knowledge.
\nThe scientific community has been studying for many years the factors that influence training motivation and the effectiveness of learning programs in organizations.
\nResearch shows a recurring finding: the problem is not so much the availability of courses as the perception of their usefulness and the ability to turn what is learned into concrete behaviors.
\nThe study by Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., & Noe, R. A. (2000) \"Toward an integrative theory of training motivation: A meta-analytic path analysis of 20 years of research\" shows that:
\nThe OECD report (2025) \"Trends in Adult Learning: New Data from the 2023 Survey of Adult Skills\", Getting Skills Right series, OECD Publishing, Paris, finds that:
\nadult participation in learning has stagnated or declined in most of the countries analyzed;
\non average, about 40% of adults in OECD countries take part in a learning activity each year, with wide gaps between countries: from 58% in Finland and Norway to 13% in Korea;
\nover the last decade, participation has increased only in Ireland and Estonia, by about 5 percentage points;
\nthe most frequently cited obstacle is lack of time, due to work and family commitments.
\nThe studies by Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010) \"Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review\" and Baldwin, T. T., & Ford, J. K. (1988) \"Transfer of training: A review and directions for future research\" have highlighted that:
\nBefore looking for a solution, you need to verify that the problem exists in your own organization.
\nTo do so, it helps to ask a few questions:
\nRecognizing the signals lets you understand whether there is real resistance to training in the company or whether the problem lies elsewhere.
\nAmong the most frequent indicators you may observe the following.
\nThis doesn't mean training must necessarily take place in people's free time, but it shows how it is seen as an activity separate from work rather than an integral part of professional development.
\nIn reality, training should also be part of everyday company life: in meetings, in discussions between colleagues, in analyzing mistakes and above all in putting what you have learned into practice.
\nThe most important learning, in fact, happens outside the classroom.
\nThese signals also show how little visible the true nature of this problem is, and how hard it is to solve without a method that investigates what is less visible but more deeply rooted.
\nSo, once the problem has been detected, starting from the signals that reveal its existence in the company, you need to observe it, break it down into its causes and identify the most appropriate solutions to solve it.
\nEvery problem should be tackled by first defining the ideal condition, that is, the best possible reality if the problem did not exist.
\nThe brain spontaneously tends to imagine the desired situation by removing the problem: the ideal condition becomes the one in which the symptom is absent.
\nBut what our mind suggests first is not always the correct ideal condition.
\nThe question to ask, in fact, is:
\nIf this problem were completely solved, what situation would you want to observe?
\nThe most immediate answer might be \"All team members do training.\"
\nThis, however, is a wrong ideal condition.
\nThe problem, in fact, is not simply that some team members don't attend courses.
\nVery often training is assigned to those who \"need it\" or to those who \"have earned it.\" Both approaches risk generating new resistance.
\nIn the first case, training is experienced as the consequence of a shortcoming.
\nIn the second, it becomes a reward or a way to win approval.
\nIn both cases it is a decision made by someone else.
\nTraining, on the other hand, should not be imposed.
\nIf the real problem, then, is that team members are pushed into training and experience it as an obligation that brings no benefit, the correct ideal condition is a different one: \"All team members ask for training.\"
\nThe problem can be considered truly solved when people themselves recognize their room for improvement and ask for training programs to fill a gap, develop new skills or make a greater contribution to the organization.
\nOnce the problem has been seen and detected, it needs to be solved.
\nBehind every action there are always ideas and beliefs that indicate which solution to choose and put into practice.
\nOften, however, the corrective actions are not the ones that eliminate the problem, because people act on a wrong idea.
\nThe most common mistake, when trying to solve the problem of low motivation to train, is believing that you need to motivate people to train.
\nWhat gets overlooked is that what really generates resistance is not training itself, but everything that over the years has been associated with the idea of studying: obligations, impositions, judgments, tests and the dynamics typical of school.
\nIt may be necessary to convince someone to attend a course, but you cannot motivate a person to train, because training is something different from simply sitting in a classroom.
\nAnother misconception is believing that training coincides with the course.
\nThe course is only one moment of the journey.
\nThinking that training starts and ends in the classroom reduces it to a mere transfer of notions.
\nRather than motivating team members, you need to avoid creating or feeding resistance to training.
\nThe Italian word for training, \"formazione,\" itself evokes the idea of giving something a new form.
\nTraining means changing something: the way you think, communication, habits, skills, behaviors and, in general, the way you approach work.
\nIf nothing changes, real training probably hasn't taken place.
\nThat's why you need to break all the negative associations people have with learning.
\nIn companies, too, meetings and discussions often reproduce the same dynamics people experienced at school: fear of judgment, difficulty speaking up, fear of making mistakes or of being evaluated.
\nThese experiences feed resistance.
\nBut what creates resistance to training in a person?
\nThere are four main causes of resistance:
\nTraining should instead follow a different path:
\nAttending the course is only the beginning of the training process.
\nTraining doesn't consist of attending courses.
\nTraining begins with attending courses.
\nThe end of the course, then, is not the end of training: the work continues in the following period through application, research and experience.
\nThat's why taking a course and training are two very different things.
\nTo reduce resistance to training, you need to act directly on the causes that generate it.
\nA few measures can help build a culture in which team members themselves ask for opportunities to grow.
\nTraining is truly effective when it stops being a decision made by others and becomes a personal choice aimed at continuous improvement.
\nResistance to training, then, is not overcome by increasing the number of courses or by trying to convince people to attend them.
\nTo achieve lasting change, you need to understand the causes of low motivation, identifying the mechanisms that lead team members to perceive training as an obligation rather than an opportunity to grow.
\nOnly by acting on these factors can you eliminate the problem at its root, instead of merely limiting its effects.
\nThis is the approach behind the method developed by Prodability, which teaches you to analyze problems before looking for their solution. Through a structured process it becomes possible to distinguish symptoms from real causes, define the problem precisely and identify the most effective interventions.
\nWith this goal, Prodability Academy has developed the course \"Problem Noting – Fai ordine nei tuoi problemi\", designed to provide a practical method for observing problems more clearly, understanding their dynamics and building solutions that produce lasting results.
\nWhen a problem is defined correctly, it becomes much easier to find the way to solve it. Because every concrete change always starts with the ability to understand what is really standing in its way.
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