I’m often contacted about providing workshops and seminars. My most frequent response after listening to the caller is, “You don’t want training.”

To understand why I would say that, think about the last class you took at your company. Or even an off-site class, for that matter.

If you attended a really good session, you probably left with a good deal energy, eager to apply what you learned.

That lasted until you got back to your office and the pile of business-as-usual on your desk and in your inbox devoured your fresh energy. It’s just like returning from vacation. Within about an hour, you are sucked back into the same old challenges and routines; you can’t believe you ever left.

Now you may be one of those rare people who gobbles up new ideas and can apply them instantly. If so, you may have walked away with a tip or two to try. And if you are also a manager who found something that was immediately useful, you have the luxury of influencing the behavior of others with the ideas you learned.

But if you are like most people, you’ve got too much to do to find the time to digest and figure out how to use what you learned.

Actually, in many cases, it is worse than that. If you are like most people, you got farther behind while in class. On top of that, it’s depressing to witness another futile effort by management that leads to nothing.

I hate to turn down business, but I measure success with results, not activity. New behaviors, unveiled opportunities, commitment to new decisions, increased productivity, growing profits and revenue – these are results. Hours of instruction, thickness of documents , number of reports, completed checklists, etc., – these are activities. It takes more than a class to create results.

If you want to learn more, read my publication, Why Training Fails. (It was a #1 Best-of-the-Web business selection for five months running against competition at Harvard Business Review, Knowledge@Wharton, McKinsey, and many more names you’ve heard of so it must be worth something!)