Workshops are one-time learning experiences, delivered by external or internal facilitators. Delivery formats range from lecture to facilitated conversation to interactive or hands-on learning. People attend workshops to develop a new skill, understand new research or insights, network with people in their field, or because they need to learn a new policy or tool.
Organizations invest in workshops as a way to develop and support people. In 2015 alone, companies spent $160 billion on training in the United States and close to $356 billion globally[4]. Unfortunately, workshops on their own are unlikely to create long-term individual or organizational change[5].
Workshops are an effective format to pass on a finite amount of information to learners or to develop a specific skill. Workshops can build awareness, curiosity, and inspiration for a topic or skill along with the skill development. It can be an introduction to a new skill or strengthening an existing skill. Workshops are also effective for introducing new organizational policies that people are expected to follow.
The outcomes of great workshops are developing specific skills or compliance with a new policy, strategy, or tool.
Limits and risks of a workshop only approach
The causality between a workshop and sustained improvements in individual performance is unclear. The limited time and duration of stand-alone workshops may prevent the desired change from sticking. Participants might be inspired to apply their skills in their day-to-day work, but lose motivation as the impact of the training fades. Training that occurs outside of work relies on the individuals to bring this information back to their organizations. The individual must communicate the value and need for working in new ways to teammates in a compelling enough way to bring everyone else along with them.
If an employee tries a new skill, but fails to communicate it effectively, which is common in the early stages of learning, they may become discouraged to try again. Without coaching or peer-support, employees don't have the support and feedback about how they might try again. If an employee's new skills are misunderstood or judged by coworkers, managers, or leaders, it decreases the likelihood that employee will take the risk of trying again.
Stand-alone workshops often fail to inspire change because personal and team accountability is rarely embedded into the workshop structure.
Team members, managers, and organizational leaders can make or break an individuals' success integrating new skills into their daily work. When challenges arise, the new learning is often the first to be dropped. Harvard Graduate School professors, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, describe this as the immune system of an organization that prevents long term and systems wide change[6].
What might look like a straightforward compliance issue, often has deep cultural roots in an organization. For example, workshops to prevent sexual harassment are often viewed as compliance. Attempting to disrupt a cultural issue with a reminder of company policy is unlikely to deliver meaningful, cultural change.
“This widely embraced development model doesn’t acknowledge that organizations are systems of interacting elements: Roles, responsibilities, and relationships are defined by organizational structure, processes, leadership styles, people’s professional and cultural backgrounds, and HR policies and practices. And it doesn’t recognize that all those elements together drive organizational behavior and performance. If the system does not change, it will not support and sustain individual behavior change—indeed, it will set people up to fail.[7]”
– Kegan and Lahey, Immunity to Change
Workshops are a great start, but an individual workshop doesn’t hold the promise of lasting cultural change. Continuous improvement takes continuous effort that one workshop can’t be expected to deliver on its own.