First, midyear is a good time to assess development across the team. In the next quarter, you still have an opportunity to develop skills that can show impact before year end and give your team momentum headed into 2027. And second, late Aug/Sept brings a “back to learning” mentality. The summer mindset has wrapped up, and it’s the time of year that we return to learning. In our own lives, it became an ingrained habit and if you have employees with kids, it’s a habit that continues with the next generation. So, if you did delay development, you’re sitting on great timing to leverage a season.
The next question becomes:
Do you let individuals find the skill development that fits what they think they need? Or do you train your team as a group?
It depends on what the team gains by being in a training program together. Nine times out of ten, the benefits of being together outweigh the independence of charting your own course.
Look at your own team to consider this.
Most teams have high achievers, low achievers and everyone in between. That’s simplifying the view, but all leaders consider performance through a similar view. High achievers seek their own development. If they felt it would improve performance, when you delayed development, they sought it out for themselves. So, they may not need it, but you need them in a program to raise the bar on everyone else. You may also have low achievers who need training the most or they need the motivation and confidence to see that training can improve their skills. Group training becomes a way for you to reset expectations, introduce coaching tools and create a setting where they can watch others. And that leaves everyone else on the team well positioned to gain value from learning together.
Your decisioning should begin with the end in mind.
What’s the outcome you want across your team? With communication, it’s generally to help people communicate their ideas clearly and confidently. But think further about what that really leads to as an outcome. Is it increased sales revenue? Is it buy-in with cross-functional teams? Is it alignment and consistency on big initiatives? Training has great impact when it’s attached to a measurable outcome, and we work with leaders to understand how you will measure that after a program.
We’ve learned two things about communication training with teams that may give you deeper insight.
Tailoring matters: When it comes to improving skills as a communicator, most participants are pretty literal. And that means if you introduce the skill into their settings and topics, they are more likely to mimic it and adopt it versus learning a skill that they have to modify themselves.
That’s why we tailor elements of every team workshop by working to understand real settings, so that your group leaves with templates and tools that are relevant to their communication.
We know it works because we often hear from participants: “I used the tools the very next day.” Across a full team, it becomes a new standard and a new model. Small group discussion and coaching can take hold organically, and for leaders, it’s a consistent methodology for coaching and holding individuals accountable.
Relevance sticks: A follow-up to any of our group programs is access to our online practice platform. To understand the best path for each participant, we ask about learning styles in their prework. Some participants respond that it is the repetition of a structured learning experience, but most say the follow-up practice needs to be fast and interactive or timely with insights.
And that’s reflective of how they learn other skills in their lives.
If they’re trying to improve their tennis game, one learner will take lessons and another learner will watch a short video. The person who takes lessons will continue to iterate and improve other times. The person who watched the video will bring one technique to their next game.
If they want to build a deck on the back of their house, some learners will find the shortest way to get there – watch a video for each step and reset each Saturday to specific tasks. Other learners will go deeper to find the right design and the best materials for outdoor weather. One deck will give quick results as outdoor space, the other may last for years with durable materials and thoughtful space design.
The program itself must cater to all learning styles.
We know that communication is a journey and develops over time. Good habits and durable concepts stick better when someone understands what they’re trying to accomplish and builds confidence in their ability to do that. Some learners think about communication skills as one and done. They took a course ten years ago and still use one or two techniques they remember. The first learner will challenge us to explain the WHYs behind the concepts, and the second learner will need to see value in undoing poor habits.
We address all of it and will leverage peers within a team to validate observations and reinforce new choices after the program. Most importantly, while one learner still gets the quick tools that they can mimic for results, the more vested learner will reinforce the deeper understanding in every informal team moment which can bring others along as they have the deeper understanding for adoption.
So now it’s back on you as a leader.
You’re at the midyear point, and you’re looking back over those goals you pushed aside. Should you reprioritize the goals around development? Absolutely. When you create team learning experiences, you accelerate results from a full team.
If you’re thinking about the outcome you need and the best path to get there, we’d love to propose options for getting to great outcomes.
We’re here when you need us!