The Truth About Professional Development Nobody Wants to Admit
Three months ago, I was sitting in a Perth boardroom watching a CEO explain why their star performer just resigned. “We threw everything at his growth,” she whispered, absolutely confused. “Leadership courses, communication workshops, the whole lot.””
I swear I have this same same discussion with executives monthly. Organisation pours money into development programs. Star player walks out the door. Executives are left wondering what they could have done differently.
Through 18 years of helping Australian businesses with their people development, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself like a damaged record. We’ve turned professional development into a tick-box exercise that satisfies HR departments but does zilch for the people it’s supposed to help.
The reality that makes everyone squirm: nearly all development initiatives exist to justify HR budgets, not create real capability.
Here’s what genuinely grinds my gears: we’re treating professional development like it’s some kind of employee perk. An afterthought that gets mentioned during performance conversations to tick the development box.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Professional growth should be fundamental to business success. But it’s turned into something that happens after everything else is sorted.
I worked with a construction company in Adelaide last year where the site managers were fantastic at their jobs but hopeless at managing people. Instead of addressing this head-on, they sent everyone to a generic “Leadership Essentials” program that cost them forty-eight grand dollars. Months later, the supervisors were still having the same same issues with their crews.
The problem isn’t with development itself. The problem is our backwards approach to implementing it.
Companies guess at what their staff should learn rather than discovering what employees are desperate to master. There’s a enormous difference between those two things, and it’s costing Australian businesses millions every year.
Genuine professional growth starts with understanding: what’s holding you back from excelling in your role?
Not what your boss thinks you need. Not what the training brochure suggests. What you understand to be the genuine barriers to your success.
I remember working with Sarah, a marketing manager at a Brisbane firm. Her company kept sending her to digital marketing courses because that’s what they thought she needed. But Sarah’s genuine challenge was managing up – dealing with an inconsistent CEO who changed priorities every week.
All the social media courses in the world wouldn’t address that challenge. One chat with a mentor who understood challenging boss dynamics? Complete transformation.
Here’s where businesses fail in the most complete fashion. They focus on hard skills when the real barriers are usually soft skills. If they ever get to soft skills development, they choose theoretical programs over hands-on mentoring.
Presentations won’t develop your ability to navigate challenging interpersonal situations. You learn by having challenging conversations with someone experienced guiding you through the process.
The best professional development I’ve ever seen happens on the job, in actual time, with immediate feedback and support. The rest is just costly corporate theatre.
Here’s another thing that drives me mental: the obsession with formal qualifications and certifications. Don’t get me wrong – some roles need specific credentials. But most jobs require capabilities that cannot be certified.
I’ve met marketing leaders without marketing degrees who grasp customer behaviour better than business school graduates. I know project managers who learned everything they know on building sites but can coordinate complicated operations better than PMP-certified consultants.
Yet we keep pushing people toward formal programs because they’re easier to measure and justify to senior management. It’s equivalent to evaluating a mechanic by their qualifications rather than whether they can fix your car.
The companies that get professional development right understand that it’s not about programs or courses or certifications. It’s about building workplaces where people can explore, try new things, and develop through purposeful activities.
Google exemplifies this approach with their dedicated learning and experimentation time. Atlassian promotes hackathon events where staff tackle challenges beyond their regular duties. These organisations understand that best development occurs when people address genuine challenges that matter to them.
Small businesses can establish these development opportunities without huge budgets. The best development sometimes occurs in modest organisations where people handle various responsibilities and grow through real-world demands.
The essential element is approaching it with clear purpose. Rather than hoping development happens naturally, intelligent companies design challenging projects, collaborative opportunities, and coaching relationships that push people appropriately.
Here’s what really works: pairing people with different experience levels on actual projects. The less experienced individual gains insight into fresh obstacles and leadership thinking. The veteran staff member enhances their guidance and people management abilities. Everyone learns something valuable.
It’s simple, affordable, and directly tied to business outcomes. But it requires managers who can coach rather than just assign tasks. This is where the majority of companies stumble.
We promote people to management positions based on their technical skills, then expect them to magically know how to develop others. It’s like promoting your best salesperson to sales manager and being surprised when they struggle with team leadership.
To create development that genuinely grows people, you must first invest in growing your supervisors. Not via management seminars, but through continuous mentoring and assistance that improves their ability to develop others.
The irony is that the best professional development often does not look like development at all. It looks like interesting work, challenging projects, and managers who care about helping their people succeed.
There’s this Canberra accounting practice where the managing partner committed to giving everyone at least one challenging assignment annually. No official training, no credentials, merely challenging work that expanded people’s abilities.
Staff turnover was almost non-existent. Staff continued because they were advancing, exploring, and being stretched in ways they valued.
That’s the secret sauce: development that’s tied to meaningful work and personal interests rather than standard competency frameworks.
The majority of development initiatives collapse because they attempt to satisfy all people simultaneously. Smarter to target certain crucial elements that matter to your individual team members in your distinct environment.
This leads to my greatest frustration: universal development solutions that supposedly work for everyone. These generic methods disregard the fact that individuals learn uniquely, possess different drivers, and encounter different obstacles.
Some folks learn through practical experience. Others favour observation and consideration. Some people flourish with public acknowledgment. Others favour private input. Nevertheless we channel everyone through uniform programs and puzzle over inconsistent results.
Smart companies personalise development the same way they personalise customer experiences. They recognise that effective approaches for some individuals might be completely inappropriate for others.
This doesn’t involve establishing countless distinct programs. It means staying adaptable about how people engage with development options and what those options involve.
It could be position changes for someone who grows through hands-on experience. Maybe it’s a reading group for someone who processes information better through discussion. Maybe it’s a conference presentation for someone who needs external validation to build confidence.
The point is matching the development approach to the person, not forcing the person to fit the approach.
I predict that in five years, businesses with the strongest people will be those that discovered how to make development personalised, relevant, and directly tied to important activities.
The others will keep shipping people to uniform programs and puzzling over why their star performers move to rivals who appreciate that outstanding people want to advance, not simply gather credentials.
Professional development isn’t about checking boxes or fulfilling training quotas. It’s about establishing cultures where people can achieve their highest capabilities while engaging in purposeful activities.
Perfect that method, and everything else – keeping people, motivation, outcomes – handles itself.
Get it wrong, and you’ll keep having those boardroom conversations about why your best people are walking out the door despite all the money you’ve spent on their “development.”.
Your choice.
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