Admittedly, I’d be playing a bit of a semantic game here with the words training and teaching if I addressed this question directly, so let me put it this way:

-When companies use the word “training,” on a practical level, they are using the term to mean one of two things: on the job training (aka learning by osmosis), or classroom training. I’m focused on the latter.

-You can’t learn leadership skills in a classroom any more than you can learn to swim in a classroom. But you can get good “smile sheet” ratings and you can measure the number of butts you have in seats, which makes classroom training look more appealing to a metrics-focused organization than more immersive programs that will have greater impact but that undoubtedly will receive more checkered feedback.

More on the problem with metrics here.

Bottom line: training works great if we’re talking about how to calculate a P/E ratio or some other skill the development of which is easy to validate. Not so much with leadership, communication, and career-development, though.