According to Training Magazine’s Training Industry Report, total training expenditures in the U.S. from 2024-2025 were $102.8 billion.
Translation?
We invest a lot of time and money into teaching people new skills. And we want a return on those investments. Of all the factors that impact the effectiveness of that skill-transfer, perhaps the biggest gap isn’t what we talk about or try to fix at all. It’s not better technology, training or tools; it’s focusing on what comes before teaching the skills.
The missing link is mindset.
What I’ve Learned
Teaching leaders and team members for about 35 years has helped me see this missing link. I’ve observed important things over these years:
- People are smart. They can learn skills; the fact that they aren’t applying them doesn’t mean they didn’t or can’t learn them.
- People want value. If they often don’t see relevance, why would they apply the skills?
- People want reality. If the skills don’t match their view of success, why would they apply them?
- People apply skills that match their beliefs. And if the match isn’t there, why would they use new skills?
This may all seem obvious or common sense. Unfortunately, this common sense often isn’t put into common practice when designing learning experiences and reinforcing those messages after the learning event. If you want to apply these truths, you must remember that the mindset of the learner must allow the skillset to make sense and seem valuable to them.
Why Mindset Before Skillset
There are six big reasons why mindset must come before skillset.
- Mindset puts skills in context. Mindset helps answer the why question – “why do I care about this skill?” But it goes beyond the traditional “What’s in it for me?”, because it goes deeper than basic motivation.
- Thoughts drive actions. What we think impacts the actions we take. While the opposite can be true, our actions can adjust our thoughts. If we are teaching people a new skill, we are asking them to adjust or overturn a habit, which means we need to get them to try it first! Think about it this way, hearts and minds, before hands and feet.
- Mindset drives willingness. Once people see value and connection to them and their worldview, change (willingness to use the new skill) goes way up.
- Mindset shapes skill interpretation. Here’s an example. You can teach me active listening skills, but if my goal is to win any conversation, I won’t likely apply what you taught, or I will use it in ways you didn’t intend.
- Mindset helps build resilience and confidence. A mindset of “mistakes are part of learning” and “this is worth working on” are the mindsets that set those who apply new skills apart from others. Not the skill or ability of the learner, but their mindset related to the learning.
- No alignment, no use. We all operate and behave in ways that match our beliefs and worldview. If that mindset isn’t aligned with the skills you want them to apply, 90+% of your training investment will be wasted.
Of course, skills matter. You create opportunities for skills to be introduced and applied. But application won’t happen until you get mindsets to match skillsets. This mismatch is likely a bigger reason than the oft-cited “lack of motivation” as to why people don’t apply what they learned in a classroom.
We’ve been helping shift mindsets (not just skillsets) for many years. In fact, this article is an example of that! If you would like to an infographic to share these ideas in your organization, send us an email and put Mindset in the subject line, and we’ll forward it to you. No obligation, just a (hopefully helpful) gift to you.
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