Learning and capability
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9 min read
Key findings
A meta-analysis of 335 samples estimated an average effect of .82 on transfer, and the size varied with design and delivery.
Predictors of transfer related more strongly for open skills such as leadership than for closed skills such as software.
In a five-week study of 65 leaders, satisfaction with one week's attempt predicted transfer behaviour the following week.
A structured fifteen-minute conversation between manager and participant before a programme can increase transfer success, according to Alzate.
Single-source measurement inflated relationships with transfer, so managers and colleagues should report on behaviour as well as participants.
In a five-week study of 65 leaders, satisfaction with one week's attempt to apply training predicted behaviour the following week.
Learning transfer is the application of what a person learned in a programme to their work, and the maintenance of that practice over time. In leadership development it depends on the participant, the design of the programme and the work environment the participant returns to.
The work environment is the part an HR adviser can negotiate with the sponsor before the programme starts.
A meta-analysis of 335 independent samples estimated an average effect of .82 for leadership training on transfer to the job.
The average hides wide variation, and the variation follows design, delivery and implementation.
A programme that fades within a quarter is therefore better examined against those conditions than dismissed as training that does not work.
What Transfer Covers
Baldwin and Ford (1988) described two conditions of transfer.
The first is generalisation, which means a leader uses the learned material on the job.
The second is maintenance, which means the leader still uses it after a period of time.
A leader who tries a new behaviour once has generalised it, and a leader who uses it a year later has maintained it.
The first depends on opportunity, and the second depends on whether anyone notices the behaviour and expects it.
Transfer also runs along a continuum from near to far.
Near transfer applies learning in a context close to the original, and suits routine tasks.
Far transfer applies it in situations that differ, and calls for judgement about how to adapt.
Weber, writing in the ATD Handbook, places anything involving people or changing situations at the far end.
Leadership behaviour sits there, because no two appraisals, conflicts or strategy discussions repeat.
Weber adds that a skill used once a quarter, such as a tough conversation, transfers poorly.
Her remedy is to train the frequent version of the skill, such as a weekly conversation of lower stakes.
Three Sets Of Factors
Baldwin and Ford organised the research on transfer into three sets of factors.
They are trainee characteristics, training design and the work environment.
Blume and colleagues (2010) tested the factors in a meta-analysis of 89 empirical studies.
Cognitive ability, conscientiousness, motivation and a supportive work environment all related positively to transfer.
Most predictors related more strongly when the training concerned an open skill such as leadership development than when it concerned a closed skill such as computer software.
Leadership programmes therefore depend on the work environment more than software training does.
The same meta-analysis found that relationships looked stronger whenever one source supplied both measures in the same sitting.
A single survey of participants answers little about what drives transfer, for that reason.
Alzate (2026) counts more than 100 factors in the transfer literature and keeps twelve that a function can act on.
Three concern the trainee, four concern the training design, and five concern the organisation.
The five organisational levers are the ones to raise with a sponsor.
Opportunities to apply the learning in daily work
Time and capacity to apply it
Support from supervisors
Support from peers
Visible expectation that the new behaviour will be used
What Leadership Programmes Achieve
Lacerenza and colleagues (2017) pooled 335 independent samples in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
The average effects were .63 for reactions, .73 for learning, .82 for transfer and .72 for results.
Reactions, learning, transfer and results are the four criteria of Kirkpatrick's evaluation model.
The strength of each effect differed with design, delivery and implementation.
The moderator analyses favoured six features.
A needs analysis before design
Feedback for participants
More than one delivery method, especially practice
Spaced sessions rather than one block
A location on site
Face-to-face delivery that is not self-administered
Content, attendance policy and duration also affected the results.
On-site programmes let leaders practise concepts during normal working conditions, and Lacerenza and colleagues expected stakeholders to be more involved as a result.
The finding on needs analysis is developed in training needs analysis when the solution is already chosen.
Assessment, Challenge, Support
Browning and Van Velsor of the Center for Creative Leadership name three elements that drive leadership development.
Assessment tells a person where they stand and what their strengths and development needs are.
Challenge supplies experiences that are new and call for skills the person does not yet have.
Support builds the confidence to meet the challenge.
They add that most leadership development happens outside the classroom, on job assignments and through relationships with other people.
Without a balance of the three, other developmental opportunities are not likely to help a person grow as a leader.
A programme can supply assessment and support while leaving challenge to whatever the participant's job happens to contain.
The design brief should therefore name the assignment each participant will carry.
Seventy Twenty Ten
The ratio of 70 per cent from experience, 20 per cent from other people and 10 per cent from formal learning appears in most development strategies.
Training Industry traces it to research at the Center for Creative Leadership in the 1980s on the key developmental experiences of successful managers.
Rothwell and colleagues credit Lominger and Associates with introducing the ratio and cite Lombardo and Eichinger (1996).
Training Industry describes it as a general guideline.
A 2017 study cited in the ATD Handbook gave a different split.
It attributed 56 per cent of learning to job experiences, 25 per cent to social sources and 19 per cent to formal training.
The ratio is useful as a direction, because it says experience carries most of the development.
It supplies no basis for allocating budget in the proportions 70, 20 and 10.
Most predictors related more strongly to transfer when the training concerned an open skill such as leadership development than a closed skill such as software.
Conditions That Defeat Design
Four conditions in the work environment can defeat a well-built programme, and each can be checked with the sponsor before design starts.
Punished behaviour. Delegation is taught where every decision escalates upward
Contradicting measures. Leaders hear about the long view and are scored monthly
Wrong population. The cohort sits below the level that created the problem
No route to apply. No open role will use the new capability
Alzate makes the same point about culture, observing that a programme cannot move out of the classroom where the culture works against what it teaches.
The third condition is the pattern described in why change programmes stall in the middle.
Ask the sponsor which of the four applies, and record the answer in the design brief.
Where none applies, the programme has a work environment that can use it.
The Manager Conversation
Alzate reports that a structured fifteen-minute conversation between manager and participant before a programme can increase transfer success, citing Brinkerhoff and Montesino (1995).
The conversation costs the manager a quarter of an hour, and the HR adviser can arrange it for every participant.
A one-page brief for the manager covers three things.
The behaviour to expect after the programme
The assignment to protect from reallocation
The date on which the manager will ask what changed
After the programme, one question on the feedback form gives the function evidence about managers.
Alzate suggests asking participants to what extent their manager supported them in implementing what they learned.
The answers show the sponsor which managers back the programme and which do not.
The First Four Weeks
Diekmann and Pundt (2025) surveyed 65 leaders who had attended leadership training, once a week for five consecutive weeks.
Satisfaction with transfer experiences in one week predicted transfer behaviour in the following week.
Transfer motivation partly explained that link, and perceived support from colleagues and supervisors did not add a significant indirect effect.
The sample is small and the period short, so the finding is a prompt for design rather than a rule.
In this small study, dissatisfaction with one attempt went with less trying the following week.
The first attempt at a new behaviour therefore deserves deliberate planning.
Choose a behaviour the participant can use within the first week
Choose one that occurs weekly rather than quarterly
Agree a low-risk setting, such as a regular team meeting
Ask the participant to record how the attempt went and how satisfied they were
Requests To The Sponsor
The HR adviser can put four requests to the sponsor in a single meeting.
Name the roles the cohort is being prepared for
Say which of the four conditions applies
Commit the managers' fifteen minutes and protect the assignment
Agree the behaviour, the baseline and the review date
Each request is a decision the sponsor can take in that meeting.
If the sponsor says managers cannot spare fifteen minutes, the answer is evidence about the time-and-capacity lever.
It belongs in the design brief before the money is spent.
A Worked Sequence
The sequence below uses five roles: the sponsor, the HR business partner, the programme lead, each participant's manager and the participant.
Eight weeks before. The HR business partner meets the sponsor and records the destination roles, the behaviours wanted, the answer on the four conditions and a review date
Six weeks before. The programme lead interviews the sponsor and a sample of participants' managers and writes the needs analysis
Four weeks before. Each manager holds the fifteen-minute conversation and receives the one-page brief
Module one. Each participant leaves with one real assignment, one observable behaviour and a plan for its first use within a week
Weeks one to four. The participant uses the behaviour weekly and records the result, and the programme lead checks in once
Week six. Module two opens with each participant presenting what happened, and peers ask questions rather than give advice
Month three. The manager and two colleagues report on the behaviour, so that the evidence does not rest on self-report alone
Months six and twelve. The HR business partner reports to the sponsor on behaviour observed, role movement and any change recommended to structure, measures or roles
Spaced modules with real application between them follow the moderator findings on spacing and practice.
The report goes to the sponsor whichever way the result falls.
Measuring Transfer
A transfer measure begins with a behaviour that an observer can see.
Alzate notes that phrases such as effective communication or lead by example leave the behaviour open to interpretation.
A behaviour such as asking each direct report for a view before stating one's own, in the weekly team meeting, can be observed and counted.
Record a baseline for the behaviour before the programme, and collect it again at one month, three months and six months.
Two early indicators are available within a fortnight.
They are whether each manager held the conversation, and whether each participant used the behaviour in the first week.
The data should come from more than one source, because Blume and colleagues found that single-source measurement inflated relationships.
The sponsor funds development to obtain role movement, and the HR information system records it.
The wider method for agreeing a measure with a sponsor is in training evaluation that survives the budget review.
Changes To An Inherited Programme
Most practitioners take over a programme that someone else designed.
Three changes improve it without a redesign.
Add the manager conversation and the one-page brief
Attach a real assignment to the existing content
Add the behaviour measure and review date from the next cohort
The programme then produces evidence of use, and the function can report on it a year later.
The development portfolio also tests the claims made in the talent review.
An assignment shows whether a person can operate at scale, as described in running a talent review that changes decisions.
The destination roles come from the review, and the trouble with high potential lists explains why they need evidence behind them.
Where The Tools Sit
In Trusted Talent Advisor, the diagnostic that establishes whether development is the right answer is component 01, The Core Practitioner Guide.
The evidence standard for the investment case is component 06, Evidence and Impact.
The Talent Template Pack includes the capability gap analysis and the development case canvases.
Related reading: competency framework.
Sources
1. Baldwin, T. T. and Ford, J. K. Transfer of Training: A Review and Directions for Future Research. Personnel Psychology, 41(1), 63 to 105, 1988.
2. Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T. and Huang, J. L. Transfer of Training: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065 to 1105, 2010.
3. Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L. and Salas, E. Leadership Training Design, Delivery, and Implementation: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686 to 1718, 2017.
4. Diekmann, C. S. and Pundt, A. Dynamic Training Transfer in Leadership Development. International Journal of Training and Development, 30(2), 2025.
5. Alzate, V. M. Building a Culture of Evaluation. ATD Press, 2026.
6. Browning, H. and Van Velsor, E. Three Keys to Development: Defining and Meeting Your Leadership Challenges. Center for Creative Leadership, 1999.
7. Weber, E. Learning Transfer: The Missing Link. In Biech, E. (ed.), ATD's Handbook for Training and Talent Development, 3rd edition. ATD Press, 2022.
8. Kirkpatrick, J. D. and Kirkpatrick, W. K. Implementing the Four Levels of Evaluation. In Biech, E. (ed.), ATD's Handbook for Training and Talent Development, 3rd edition. ATD Press, 2022.
9. Rothwell, W. J., Singh, S. and Lee, J. Accelerated Action Learning. Routledge, 2024.
10. Training Industry. What Is the 70-20-10 Model? trainingindustry.com.
From the system
Trusted Talent Advisor sets out the full method: seven components, 51 tools, The Talent Template Pack and The Prompt Library.
See the system
Questions this answers
What is learning transfer?
Learning transfer is the use of learned knowledge and skills on the job, and the maintenance of that use over time. Baldwin and Ford (1988) separated generalisation to the job from maintenance, and leadership behaviour usually needs both.
Why does leadership training not stick?
Usually because the work environment does not use the new behaviour. The manager does not expect it, the measures contradict it or no role needs it. Lacerenza and colleagues found that practice and spacing change the size of the effect.
What factors affect transfer of training?
Baldwin and Ford named three sets: trainee characteristics, training design and the work environment. A meta-analysis of 89 studies found that cognitive ability, conscientiousness, motivation and a supportive work environment all related positively to transfer.
How can managers support learning transfer?
Before the programme, hold a structured fifteen-minute conversation about the behaviour to expect. Afterwards, protect the assignment and ask on a set date what changed. Alzate cites Brinkerhoff and Montesino (1995) for the conversation.
How do you measure whether leadership development worked?
Define an observable behaviour, take a baseline, and collect reports from managers and colleagues at one, three and six months. Add role movement from the HR information system. Single-source measurement inflated relationships with transfer in a 2010 meta-analysis.
What percentage of training is applied on the job?
No reliable single figure exists, and widely quoted percentages trace to weak sources. A meta-analysis of 335 leadership training samples estimated an average transfer effect of .82, which varied with design and delivery.
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