Four Rationales for Organizational Development

Why Training Does Not Fix a Broken System

Executive summary

When an employee’s results fall below expectations, organizations too often interpret the gap automatically as a lack of knowledge, skills, or motivation. The familiar sequence follows: problem — training — test — certificate — expectation of improvement. Yet a performance gap can have many causes: missing skills, a poorly designed process, conflicting KPIs, inadequate tools, lack of feedback, or contradictory management decisions.

The central thesis is simple: training is not a universal remedy for a performance gap. Before prescribing training, identify the cause of the gap. Sometimes the answer really is capability development. Sometimes it is a change in the process, interface, goals, feedback, or consequences.

Introduction. The great management illusion

There is a convenient illusion in modern business: when performance falls, people need more training. Companies hire strong specialists, buy courses, deploy learning platforms, and run programs on communication, resilience, sales, customer service, and leadership. Yet performance sometimes does not change.

The problem begins when a performance gap is automatically treated as a learning gap. If an employee makes an error, we assume they do not know the right action. If a manager misses a target, we assume they lack a skill. If a department is slow, L&D receives a request for time-management training.

Before training a person, we should ask a more uncomfortable question: does the system they work in actually allow them to produce the expected result?

What employees say

Recent evidence illustrates the scale of the issue. Ipsos Karian and Box’s Work on What Matters surveyed 5,000 workers in the United Kingdom. Around one third said their organization itself makes it harder to do their work well. Frequently cited barriers included slow processes, unrealistic workloads, outdated systems, and excessive meetings.

An employee can therefore have the necessary knowledge and still face a system that makes the right action difficult, slow, or unrewarding.

The management question should therefore be not only “What does the employee not know?” but also “What in the work environment prevents them from doing what is required?”

Source: Ipsos Karian and Box, Work on What Matters [1]. Additional analysis: Huthwaite International [2].

1. Person versus system

One of the clearest formulations of this problem comes from Geary Rummler and Alan Brache in Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart. Their principle is often summarized as: “If you pit a good performer against a bad system, the system will win almost every time” [3].

If you pit a good performer against a bad system, the system will win almost every time.

The point is not to excuse the employee or blame the system in advance. It is to diagnose the causes of the result. Rummler and Brache view performance as a system in which an individual’s results depend not only on competence, but also on goals, job design, processes, management, resources, feedback, and consequences.

Consider a hypothetical employee, Bert, who handles customer requests and regularly makes errors when completing a complex CRM form.

The manager’s instinct is: “Bert is careless. He needs another CRM training course.”

Systemic diagnosis may reveal a different picture:

• The CRM form is poorly designed, fields are arranged illogically, and the system periodically freezes.
• Bert has no concise checklist for verifying critical fields.
• The manager gives little regular feedback and notices errors only after a serious complaint.
• Bert’s main KPI is handling speed, so careful completion conflicts with the metric.
• The employee knows the standard, but the system effectively rewards different behavior.

In this case, another CRM course may improve knowledge of the interface but will not remove the main cause of the problem. The conditions in which the result is expected must also change.

2. Thomas Gilbert: value of results, not effort alone

Thomas Gilbert, one of the founders of Human Performance Technology, distinguished human behavior from the accomplishments produced by that behavior in Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance [4]. His concept of Worthy Performance focuses attention on the relationship between the value of an accomplishment and the behavior required to produce it.

The important implication is that improving performance cannot be reduced to making people work harder. Sometimes the better intervention is to change the environment, tools, information, consequences, or design of the work.

This does not mean training is unnecessary. When diagnosis identifies a genuine knowledge or skill gap, training may be exactly the right intervention. The mistake is prescribing it before identifying the cause.

3. Diagnose before you train

In 1970 Robert Mager and Peter Pipe published Analyzing Performance Problems, a practical method for analyzing discrepancies between desired and actual performance [5]. Their approach argues for determining the nature of a performance problem before selecting an intervention.

One of the best-known questions in their approach can be phrased as: “Could the person do the task if their life depended on it?” The point is diagnostic, not literal: if a person is capable of performing an action, we should not automatically conclude that lack of skill is the cause.

A “yes” answer does not prove that the system is solely responsible. It signals the need to investigate other causes: working conditions, information, feedback, consequences, priorities, resources, or process design.

4. Three levels at which the cause may reside

Rummler and Brache recommend looking at performance simultaneously at three levels: organization, process, and job/performer [3].

• Organization level — strategy, goals, structure, resource allocation, and management decisions.
• Process level — how work actually moves across functions and departments.
• Job/performer level — role goals, tools, feedback, supervision, knowledge, and skills.

A problem being addressed at the employee level may actually have been created at the process or organizational level.

For example, if sales managers are rewarded for deal volume while production is rewarded for cost reduction and standardization, a communication course cannot by itself resolve the conflict. The problem may be in the goal system and process design.

5. The trap of the vertical organization chart

An organization chart is useful for management, but it can create a dangerous illusion: that work happens inside separate functional boxes. The chart shows sales, marketing, production, logistics, and finance. The customer, however, does not receive the result from one department.

Real work moves horizontally. A request passes through several functions; information moves between people and systems; one department’s output becomes another department’s input.

Rummler and Brache contrast the traditional vertical view with a systemic, horizontal view of work [3]. This is where their central concept of white space appears.

6. Where results die: the white spaces

White space is the area between functional blocks on an organization chart through which horizontal processes run. It is where work is handed off: information, documents, data, decisions, materials, and responsibility [3].

Four problems appear especially often at these interfaces:

1. No owner. Each department has a manager, but nobody may own the quality of the handoff between departments.
2. Conflicting local goals. Each function hits its KPI while the end-to-end process gets worse.
3. Information loss. Handoffs between systems and people create duplication, errors, and delays.
4. Diffused accountability. Everyone completes their part, yet the customer still receives a poor result.

A white space is therefore not merely an empty area on an organization chart. It is a place where the system becomes less visible to individual participants even though the end result may be determined there.

7. Why training so often becomes the wrong answer

If the problem originates in the system, why do organizations keep choosing training?

Because training is a convenient management intervention. It is visible, relatively easy to launch, count, and report. Organizations can count participants, learning hours, completed courses, tests, and satisfaction.

Changing a process is harder. It may require several departments to work together, KPIs to be redesigned, information systems to be changed, accountability to be redistributed, or a management decision to be reconsidered.

Training can therefore become a visible sign that the organization is “doing something” rather than the intervention that addresses the root cause.

This does not make L&D the source of the problem. Rather, L&D can become trapped in the role of order-taker: “We have a problem — build training.” A more mature role starts with: “What is causing the performance gap, and is training part of the solution?”

This logic aligns with the standards of the International Society for Performance Improvement: start with results, take a systemic view, determine the need and cause, and only then design, implement, and evaluate an intervention [6].

8. Even good training may not transfer to work

There is a second problem: even when training is genuinely needed, completing it does not automatically change behavior.

Mary Broad and John Newstrom treated transfer of knowledge and skills into work as a separate management challenge in Transfer of Training [7]. They emphasized the role of managers, the work environment, support before and after training, and deliberate follow-through.

The book is associated with a widely cited estimate that only around 10% of classroom learning is applied on the job. That figure should not be treated as a universal law; later literature has criticized repeating the “10%” figure without context. The underlying transfer problem, however, remains important: knowledge acquired in training does not automatically become workplace behavior [7].

After training, therefore, we should ask not only “What did people learn?” but also “What in the work system will allow them to apply it tomorrow morning?”

9. Knowledge versus the work system

Suppose an employee has genuinely been taught how to qualify a customer request correctly.

• Training says: ask five diagnostic questions.
• The CRM requires fourteen fields.
• The KPI demands a short call.
• The manager discusses only the number of calls handled.
• Customer outcomes are assessed rarely and separately.

The employee may know the standard perfectly and still not follow it. Not because they are lazy or unintelligent, but because the system sends conflicting signals.

One of the central conclusions of this research is this: sometimes the problem is not that people do not know the right behavior. The problem is that the work system makes the wrong behavior easier, faster, or more rewarding.

10. Eight questions to ask before assigning training

Before launching another course, conduct a short diagnosis. It does not need to become a months-long project. But managers, HR, and L&D should be able to work through at least these eight questions.

1. What exact result is not being achieved?

Not “people work badly,” but specifically: processing time is rising, quality is falling, errors are increasing, sales are declining, or an SLA is being missed.

2. What behavior should happen instead?

Describe the observable action. If you cannot define what the person should do differently, it is too early to talk about training.

3. Does the employee know what is expected?

Is there a clear goal, standard, priority, and criterion for a correct result?

4. Does the person have the conditions needed to perform?

Are the necessary data, tools, time, authority, interfaces, instructions, and resources available?

5. Does the system provide timely feedback?

Does the employee know when the work was done correctly or incorrectly, and do they receive that information quickly enough?

6. Does the system reward the desired behavior?

Do KPIs, incentives, workload, or management practices punish the very behavior the company says it wants?

7. Does the result break at a cross-functional handoff?

Are there conflicting goals, no process owner, information losses, or unclear accountability between functions?

8. Only now: is there really a knowledge or skill gap?

If a capability gap remains after the previous seven questions, training becomes a justified intervention.

These eight questions are not presented as a universal law. They are a practical diagnostic framework drawn from Human Performance Technology, Rummler–Brache’s systemic approach, and Mager–Pipe’s performance-problem analysis [3, 5, 6].

Conclusion. Cause first — solution second

An organization chart is a useful map, but it does not always show how results are actually created. Functions and reporting lines are visible. Horizontal flows, handoffs, conflicting KPIs, and places where accountability becomes nobody’s job are much harder to see.

When a performance gap appears, the habitual response is to search for a weakness inside the person. That is convenient: send the person to training, run a test, record completion. A systemic approach requires us to identify the cause first.

Sometimes the employee genuinely lacks the skill. Then train.

Sometimes the employee knows, but does not understand what is expected. Then clarify goals and standards.

Sometimes the employee knows and understands, but receives no useful feedback. Then change the feedback system.

Sometimes the employee knows, can, and wants to perform, but lacks the right tools or time. Then change the work environment.

Sometimes the employee performs correctly within their own area, but the cross-functional process is broken. Then work on the process.

Only after this diagnosis does training become not a ritual, but a meaningful part of the solution.

Good L&D does not begin with “What training should we run?” It begins with “Why is the required result not happening?”

Perhaps this is the main lesson of the white spaces: employees are not always the weak link in the system. Sometimes the system itself prevents strong employees from being strong.

Methodological note

This research does not claim that most performance problems are caused exclusively by the work environment, nor does it set L&D against management. Its claim is narrower: a performance gap should not automatically be treated as a competence gap. The cause should be diagnosed before an intervention is chosen.

Sources / Fontes

[1] Ipsos Karian and Box. Work on What Matters. 2026. Research of 5,000 UK workers. — https://ipsoskarianandbox.com/report/work-on-what-matters/

[2] Huthwaite International. The Performance Illusion – Why Training Doesn’t Stick. 23 July 2026. Secondary analysis of Ipsos Karian and Box data. — https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/the-performance-illusion

[3] Rummler, G. A., & Brache, A. P. Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart. Jossey-Bass, 1990. — https://books.google.com/books?id=_lOV6iJYeQ0C

[4] Gilbert, T. F. Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance. McGraw-Hill, 1978. — https://books.google.com/books?id=goNbAAAAMAAJ

[5] Mager, R. F., & Pipe, P. Analyzing Performance Problems; or “You Really Oughta Wanna”. 1970. — https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED050560

[6] International Society for Performance Improvement. Performance Standards / 10 Performance Standards. — https://www.ispi.international/performance-standards

[7] Broad, M. L., & Newstrom, J. W. Transfer of Training: Action-Packed Strategies to Ensure High Payoff from Training Investment. Basic Books, 1992. — https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED366712