Most training ends where real learning begins.
The learning event gets all the attention. The preparation and the follow-through are where there is real leverage to design for transfer to actually happen.
A model of how learning moves.
A model of how learning moves across the nine principals for transformation — and where, in most programmes, the arc breaks.
The first phase, Pre, is about Excitement: establishing meaningful learning goals before the room comes together. The second, During, is about Engagement: live, social, full-presence learning. The third, Post, is about Extension: the loops of applying and reflecting that turn a good experience into a lasting change. Most programmes invest almost entirely in the second phase.
A peak with no arc.
Research consistently shows that only 15–20% of participants apply their learning in ways that produce meaningful results. Not because the training was bad. Not because the participants weren't motivated. But because the learning journey was designed to end at the door.
Most L&D investment goes into the experience itself — the workshop, the programme, the facilitation. That work matters. But without deliberate design for what comes before and after, the event becomes a peak with no arc. The insight fades. The intention doesn't become action.
Nine principals for transformation.
Transfer requires specific conditions across the full arc — preparation that makes the learning matter, an experience worth showing up for, and structured follow-through after the room empties. Most programmes invest in the middle and treat the rest as logistics.
Pre
Preparation that connects the participant to why this matters — before the room comes together.
Needed. addresses a real gap.
The learning answers a problem the participant already feels. Without a real gap to close, attendance is compliance — and compliance doesn't transfer.
Meaningful. tied to identity & purpose.
The work connects to who the participant is becoming, not just to a competency framework. Identity is what carries learning back into the days that follow.
Relational. anchored in relationships.
A manager, a sponsor, a peer — someone in the participant's working life knows why they're here and is paying attention. Learning rarely survives a room that doesn't care it happened.
During
Live, social, full-presence learning — where the experience does what only the experience can.
Engaged. through the head, heart and hands.
An insight that is thought, felt and enacted is encoded three times, and has three ways to be found again afterwards. What only passes through the head stays in the room.
Stretched. real learning edges met, in a safe container.
Growth sits just past what participants can already do, and the participant chooses how far to step. The struggle at the edge is not the price of learning; it is the learning.
Held. by a foundation of positive relationships.
Safety is what opens the mind to change: the safer people feel, the braver they become. Warm, positive relationships are not the atmosphere around the learning; they are the ground it stands on.
Post
Loops of applying and reflecting that turn a good experience into a lasting change.
Shared. visible to your peers.
What the participant tries is seen by the people they learned with. Visibility creates accountability — and a small audience of peers is more durable than any individual commitment.
Applied. tried in real conditions.
The work meets the actual job — a real meeting, a real conversation, a real decision. Not a simulation, not a journal prompt. Application under pressure is what turns a model into a habit.
Integrated. meaning made, loop closed.
The participant returns to what they tried and names what they learned. Reflection closes the loop — without it, the experience stays an experience and never becomes practice.
Decades of evidence, one conclusion.
The learning transfer problem is not new. It has been documented, measured, and studied for decades. What's changed is our ability to do something about it.
Weinbauer-Heidel · Transfer Effectiveness, 2018
Across more than 70 empirical studies, twelve transfer determinants explain the gap between training completed and behaviour changed. The strongest predictors sit outside the learning event itself — in goal clarity, organisational expectations, and post-programme application support.
Brinkerhoff · The High Impact Learning Organization
In a now-canonical finding, only 15% of participants apply training to produce meaningful business results, 70% try and fail, and 15% never try at all. The differentiator isn't the quality of the event — it's the design of what surrounds it.
Knowles · The Adult Learner
Adults learn when they are ready to learn, when the content connects to their experience, and when the learning is oriented to immediate application. Each of these is a design choice — and each lives mostly outside the workshop walls.
The Other 50%
A research guide to the learning transfer gap.
Why does most training fail to change behaviour — and what does the evidence say about fixing it? Forty pages. Fully cited. Written for facilitators and L&D professionals who want the argument, not just the conclusion.
Insaga is built around the Transfer Arc.
Get recomendations about how you can strengthen the design of one of your learning experiences, using the Transfer Arc and loads of science of adult learning and transformation.