We’ve known for decades that most soft skills training doesn’t change behavior or improve business outcomes.

And despite all the innovations in adult ed and technology, the situation is no better now than in the old days of Death by Powerpoint and building towers out of dried spaghetti and marshmallows to teach creativity.

According to a 2022 Gartner survey, just 29% of employees say learning and development “helps them learn effectively from available people, experiences or content.”

Take negotiation, for example. To negotiate effectively, you need to learn, practice, and master specific skills and techniques. They aren’t secret or esoteric; from Getting to Yes to Never Split the Difference, the best books on the topic are perennial bestsellers.

I took an online negotiation course a few years ago and totally mastered the material. I could have passed the written test in my sleep with my eyes closed (since that’s how I sleep), and possibly with one hand tied behind my back. (Preferably my right, since I’m left-handed.)

In the real world, however, things weren’t so rosy. I froze when trying to renegotiate a contract with a client. I backed down when haggling over the price of a new car because I didn’t want the sales guy to dislike me. And I did another thing badly because this paragraph needs a third example.

And don’t get me started on my attempts to get better at conflict resolution. I’m a ninja at expressing empathy, asking clarifying questions, and exploring interests rather than positions. I can count to 10 like a Buddha before blurting something hurtful. And it can all come tumbling down when I get triggered, and I can end up pouring fuel on the flames of conflict like a right arsehole.

And as the Gartner stat shows, I’m not the only one.

So what’s the problem?

Why are we so bad at installing skills like communication, creative or strategic thinking, and self-regulation?

I’m going to answer by comparing humans to computers, an analogy that I really dislike in general, but it’s too useful here to let that stop me.

Think of soft skills like active listening, negotiating, time management, creativity, and so on as software. The goal of training is to install the software in trainees, or in most cases update their existing software. Get them from passive ignoring to active listening 1.0 to Active Listening 2.0, and maybe even ACTIVE LISTENING 3.0.

Software, of course, gets installed on top of an operating system. And if the operating system is too old or too buggy, the software that sits on top of it won’t function well and may not even open.

In our analogy, your operating system is your mindset.

We need to define that word to make it useful.

Your mindset is everything you’ve learned about how the world works: what’s safe and what’s dangerous; what kind of person challenges ideas or keeps their head down; and so on. These are the rules our minds have created in service of our survival, and for the most part they are as unbreakable as they are unconscious.

If training ignores the operating system, that’s like trying to install Autodesk Maya on top of Windows Vista (still the worst OS I’ve ever used — even MSDOS 6.22 was so much better!)

Drilling one layer deeper, operating systems float on top of hardware.

If the hardware is too old, you can’t upgrade the OS. This happens to me a lot because I read the tech press about the amazing cool features on the last iOS version and then feel sad because it won’t install on my 7-year-old iPhone 8.

Your neurology is your hardware. By neurology, I’m talking about how your body perceives and responds to inner and outer cues of safety and threat, before your conscious mind even gets a say.

When your body and nervous system code a situation as “potential lethal threat,” your body goes into fight-or-flight, ready to bite or run, even if that threat is an email or a snippy comment.

And in fight-or-flight, the circuits that say “curiosity” and “creativity” and “strategic thinking” are all in the OFF OFF OFF position. When means you default to, well, your defaults, which are all the habits you attended that training to change.

If you want to change your own habits and behaviors in high-stakes situations, or upgrade those of your team or organization, you need to work at all three levels simultaneously.

You need all three for profound transformation that’s effortless to maintain, and that doesn’t revert during moments of extreme stress.

If that sounds like a long, slow process, it isn’t.

In fact, the most efficient approach is the one that deals with all three levels — skills, mindset, and neurology — at the same time.

That way the mindset can upgrade effortlessly to support the wanted skills, and the neurology responds in real time when its old assumptions are made conscious and can be jettisoned like that package of pickled beets I forgot in the crisper drawer for two months.

As you pursue high performance in your career and organization, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What’s the one skill or habit that, if changed or upgraded, would make the biggest difference to your happiness and success?
2. What’s the one behavior change that would have the greatest positive impact in your team or organization?
3. What are the elements of mindset and neurology that are blocking those upgrades?
4. What would have to happen for the shifts to occur spontaneously and effortlessly?

If you’d like a hand answering those questions, hit me up at askHowie.com. I’m a high performance speaker, trainer, and coach, and I love the work I do helping executives, leadership teams, and fast growing small businesses do great things with wisdom, joy, and ease.