Most Performance Issues Aren’t Skill Gaps

The comfortable myth about performance

One of the most enduring assumptions in organisations is that when performance dips, people need more training. Missed targets, inconsistent behaviours, quality issues, the response is often the same. Train them again. It feels logical, decisive, and reassuring. But in most cases, it’s simply the wrong diagnosis.

What’s really getting in the way

In reality, people rarely underperform because they lack skill or knowledge. More often, they struggle because expectations are unclear, priorities compete, systems work against them, or leadership conversations haven’t happened. Training becomes the default because it is visible, familiar, and easy to commission. Unfortunately, it often treats the symptom rather than the cause.

When good training still doesn’t work

I’ve worked with highly capable teams who have been trained multiple times on the same topics, yet performance hasn’t shifted. Not because the training was poor, but because the environment people returned to made application almost impossible. When clarity is missing, decision rights are blurred, or behaviours aren’t reinforced, even the best learning design can’t compensate.

Where L&D’s real value sits

This is where L&D has a far bigger role to play than simply delivering programmes. The real value is in diagnosis. Slowing the conversation down. Asking what “good” actually looks like. Exploring what is getting in the way of performance right now. Challenging assumptions about whether learning is the right intervention at all.

These conversations aren’t always comfortable. They surface issues that sit in leadership, culture, and systems. But avoiding them doesn’t make the problem disappear, it just relocates it into a training room.

The shift from delivery to influence

When L&D jumps straight to delivery, it can look helpful in the moment. Over time, though, credibility erodes. The same problems return, the same courses are rerun, and training quietly becomes organisational theatre. The shift happens when L&D positions itself as a performance partner rather than an order-taker.

That means contracting properly, being clear about what training can and can’t solve, and having the confidence to challenge the brief when the problem hasn’t been properly defined. Sometimes the right answer is training. Often, it isn’t.

Why less training often delivers more impact

Here’s the irony. When expectations are clear, systems align, and leadership issues are addressed, the amount of training needed usually reduces. Learning sticks because it has something solid to land on. Performance improves not because people were trained harder, but because the conditions for success were finally in place.

Building this capability inside L&D

This is exactly the shift we focus on in the TwentyOne Leadership L&D Academy. We help L&D teams move from being reactive delivery functions to confident, credible partners in performance. The Academy builds the capability to diagnose before designing, to contract with confidence, and to have the conversations that create value long before any budget is spent.

If this article resonates, it’s usually a sign that your L&D team doesn’t need more content. It needs a different mindset, stronger consulting skills, and the confidence to ask better questions.

That’s what the Academy is designed to develop.

Contact me matt@twentyoneleadership.com