The Death of Training: Why Real Learning Happens in the Fire
The E1B2 CollectiveJun 2, 20269m1,552 words
AJ argues that real learning happens when you throw people 'into the fire' — structured, measured, real work with real consequences beats sanitized modules and role‑play.
Summary
AJ opens by defending learning & development and borrows an athletic mindset: practice must feel real to teach durability. He criticizes online modules and role‑play for lacking intensity and curveballs, and proposes intentionally placing new hires or current employees into lower‑stakes, low‑win parts of the business to gain experience. He gives concrete examples — a new AE testing about 10 low‑probability prospects and an anecdote where 'Derek' worked 17 enterprise deals and pushed 13 to a fourth conversation — and insists leaders must provide structure and psychological safety around these trials. With AI making knowledge ubiquitous ('knowledge is like air now'), AJ says the value will shift to who can execute under pressure and convert experience into measurable learning and ROI.
Key takeaways
- — AJ's core proposition: create real, consequential on‑the‑job experiments rather than relying on modules or simulated role‑play.
- — Concrete test design: assign a new AE ~10 prospects that fit your low‑win profile to gain reps and extract learning, accepting short‑term lack of revenue.
- — Provide preconditions: supply structure, psychological safety, and clear learning objectives before 'throwing' someone into the fire.
- — Use historical data to convert experience into ROI storytelling — e.g., Derek: put on 17 enterprise deals, didn’t close them immediately, but advanced 13 to a fourth conversation, yielding actionable learnings.
- — Sports analogy: like inserting a backup quarterback when the team leads by 24 in the third quarter — give real reps in manageable contexts.
- — With AI reducing the scarcity of knowledge ('knowledge is like air now'), competitive advantage will come from executing ideas under real pressure, not merely having strategy.
Transcript
Speaker 1 · 0:00Good morning, world. AJ here bringing you yet another episode of the business of alignment podcast. Let's talk about L and D for a moment. You don't get enough love, my L and D leaders. So let's change that this morning.
Speaker 1 · 0:15I wanna talk about I wanna talk about ways that we can enable learning. You all know I come from an athletic background, and many athletes that may be listening and many athletes that I know, we've always appreciated, maybe not enjoyed, but appreciated and respected practice. Now something is telling me that I wanna clip the AI. Alan Iverson is what his official name is, Clipper. He says practice.
Speaker 1 · 0:45We're talking about practice. For anyone that knows that reference, he was how do I explain this? He was at the time, he was in, like, his early twenties, and he felt that if he was dealing with life circumstances that he was allowed to miss practice at times. Now those at times, quote, unquote, kinda got a little high. But the punchline of that is he felt if he missed practice that didn't impact his play on the game.
Speaker 1 · 1:18Now we all have a perspective on that, and I think I probably would side with the coach at this point in my life and my career now that I'm a little bit older. The summary of the story is when you are able to practice, you're able to hone and define your skill. And I think we often miss the learning and development need and the fabric of how do we implement practice? How do we implement modules? How do we integrate learning into the work when we actually have to produce results?
Speaker 1 · 1:54And anyone that's inevitably an athlete, anyone that has that background, we all understand that when you are an athlete, when you are someone that respects practice, you're someone that does respect the simulation of something being truly real. And I've always thought about ways that we could replicate that inside the workplace because to my L and D leaders out here, we know that trying to like, I don't know, trying to create online modules and learning. And even with AI, there can be things that we can replicate or gamified approaches. I just don't know if I love that. Right?
Speaker 1 · 2:31I don't even know if I love kind of literally going through, the the the motion of role play, if you will. And that happens a lot within sales teams or scenario planning that had happens a lot within strategy teams or ops teams or product teams. I don't really know if I even love that because again, it doesn't bring the I don't want to see the intensity, but I kind of want to go there, right? Doesn't bring the intensity. It doesn't bring the the nuance of the reality because in reality, there's always going to be a curveball.
Speaker 1 · 3:01I don't care who you are. I don't care how good your product is. I don't care how scaled and structured your organization is. There is always going to be a curveball. And the organizations that find themselves scaling have lots of human beings, lots of professionals, lots of practitioners that can navigate those curveballs.
Speaker 1 · 3:19Well, and so I guess to get to the punchline. I've been thinking often, what would it look like to analyze your customers to analyze your partnerships motion, your sales motion, your certain product roadmap. Just analyze your work product today. And just like the temperature and the pulse of your company. Now, is there an area of your business right now where you could probably survive one of your employees.
Speaker 1 · 3:46Let's use sales as an easy example to make a mistake. Like, is there a subsect of leads where you could put a brand new salesperson just in the fire, if you will, knowing all along, they're probably going to fail. Knowing all along, you're not prop you're probably not going to get any immediate ROI, I. E. Revenue, I.
Speaker 1 · 4:07E. Close one business from that eight hours of energy. But understanding the impact of that learning and building the fabric in the systems and frankly the psychological safety and the structure before you throw that new AE into the fire to say, listen, we're going to have you test about 10 of our prospects. Now, these prospects typically fit the model that are not prospects that we have a high level of success winning in closing. But there's going to be a lot of learning going through this process.
Speaker 1 · 4:40We trust that you're going to respect the brand. Trust that you're going to be able to communicate the product. And we want to see you work on these three things. Very similar to how I see value in organizations in the NFL bringing in a backup quarterback when the team is up by 24 points and it's the third quarter. So that backup quarterback can get some reps versus certain teams decide to keep their starters in the entire time.
Speaker 1 · 5:09I'm a big fan of being ready for really bad things that happen. I'm a big fan of having everyone literally be ready. Not not, you know, going through a simulation, not potentially being ready, not understanding the framework, not understanding the play. No. I want them to have at least experience with running the play felt like.
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