Why so many workshops don't change anything

When leaders want to create focus, set direction, or bring about change, a workshop is often the answer. People come together across departments, the pace slows down for a while, and there is room to talk about collaboration, direction, or leadership in a different way than everyday life normally allows. Participants often feel that something important has been set in motion. New perspectives emerge, old frustrations are voiced, and shared ambitions become clearer.

But you probably know this yourself. I often talk to people who have previously attended training courses and workshops, and many describe the same thing: everyday life quickly returns to its familiar patterns. Not because the workshop was bad, or because people don't want change, but because the daily practices of organizations carry a lot of weight. The dictatorship of the calendar takes over, decisions have to be made, and familiar ways of working take control again.

This is not something I only experience in my work. The same point is repeated in research dealing with learning and change in organizations.

Harvard Business Review has described how management training and workshops often do not lead to improved performance in themselves. New insights quickly disappear if they are not supported by changes in the way the work is actually done. People simply fall back into their old habits when the environment around them does not change.

At the same time, research points to what is actually needed if learning is to make a difference. New approaches must be quickly tested in specific work tasks. Managers must follow up on the changes they want to see. And the organization's structures and priorities must support the new ways of working so that it does not just become yet another initiative on top of everything else.

The same idea is found in research from Harvard Business School, which points out that organizational culture cannot be changed through inspiring events or programs alone. Culture is shaped by what people do together every day. If meetings, decision-making processes, and forms of collaboration remain unchanged, then culture will naturally remain unchanged as well.

Therefore, research recommends starting with concrete changes in practice rather than abstract cultural projects. How do we make decisions? How do we handle mistakes? How do we collaborate across departments? When actions gradually change, the culture slowly begins to shift as well.

Something similar is described in the theory of double-loop learning, developed by organizational researcher Chris Argyris. Here, a distinction is made between improving one's actions and examining the assumptions behind those actions. Many development processes lead to new tools or minor adjustments in practice, but without questioning the fundamental ways in which the organization thinks and works.

Double-loop learning is about real learning only happening when teams both change their actions and examine the assumptions that guide those actions. This requires space for reflection and the courage to question what is otherwise taken for granted.

When I look back on the processes I have been part of, where workshops have actually led to noticeable changes, it is almost never the workshop itself that has made the difference. What matters is the work that follows afterwards.

For example, I have seen management teams who had already decided to work differently before the workshop and who used the day as a joint catalyst to initiate something new. Other times, the workshop has become a place where teams have spotted their own patterns and started to reflect on their practices in a new way. When that happens, a kind of double-loop learning is set in motion, where curiosity about one's own practices grows and learning continues afterwards.

Change rarely manifests itself as a major shift from one day to the next. More often, it is a process in which new practices are slowly tried out, adjusted, and repeated until they begin to feel natural.

That is why I also emphasize that the learning and development processes I work with do not stop at the training itself. The programs are typically built around an interaction between reflection and testing: you stop and examine your own and your team's practices, try out new approaches in everyday life, and return with experiences that again become the subject of joint reflection.

In this way, implementation does not become a separate step, but an integral part of learning.

At the same time, I work on strengthening the team's ability to learn along the way. Once teams have experienced that they can actually change practices together, the next change becomes easier. The organization gradually develops greater confidence in being able to adjust course when the environment changes. Change becomes less dramatic and more a natural part of the way we work.

Workshops are still an important part of the process. This is often where people actually meet and have the opportunity to pause and reflect together. But change only happens when the conversation continues afterwards and when new intentions are translated into concrete actions in everyday life.

Ultimately, this is perhaps the most important skill for both leaders and organizations: not finding the right answers once and for all, but becoming better at learning along the way—together.

Perhaps that is why the workshop is not the place where change happens. Perhaps it is rather the place where you decide whether you want to do the work afterwards.

And it is only then that the direction slowly begins to take shape in practice.