WHEN TRAINING INTERRUPTS PERFORMANCE

One of the biggest mistakes I see in Learning & Development is this obsession with “training visibility.”

People are pulled out of operations during peak hours.

Managers lose floor strength.

Teams sit through presentations while guests wait outside.

And somehow… we still call it “performance improvement.”

I’ve worked across hotels, restaurants, and cruise ships long enough to know this:

If training disrupts business more than it improves it, something is wrong.

Some of the best learning moments I’ve seen never happened inside a training room.

They happened:

During a difficult guest recovery.

Inside a galley during rush hour.

At reception when systems crashed.

In a corridor conversation after a leadership mistake.

On a vessel carrying over 100 nationalities trying to work as one team.

That’s where behaviour actually changes.

Over the years, one thing became increasingly clear to me: learning is not always proportional to the amount of training delivered.

Sometimes, a 20-minute coaching conversation before service creates more impact than a 3-hour classroom session.

A sharp manager walking the floor with intent can improve standards faster than another compliance module.

A team member observing calm leadership during pressure often learns more about service than any PowerPoint ever could.

Today, whenever I design learning strategy, I ask one question first:

“Will this help performance…or interrupt it?”

Because employees are not sitting idle waiting to be trained.

They are already working.

Already stressed.

Already handling pressure.

L&D cannot behave like a separate universe disconnected from operations.

The real role of Learning &Development is not to pull people away from performance.

It is to improve performance while work is happening.

Quietly.

Practically.

Without drama.

That shift changed the way I look at training forever.

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