Most Corporate Training Is Bullshit.

Let's be honest: Corporate training is where good intentions go to die.

You know the drill. You get pulled into a conference room (or now, a Zoom call) for some mandatory training on "leadership excellence" or "synergistic innovation" or whatever buzzword the HR department found on LinkedIn that week.

You spend two hours half-listening while scrolling through your phone, take a quiz at the end to prove you were technically present, and then immediately forget everything because—let's face it—none of it was relevant to your actual job.

Then everyone wonders why companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on "learning and development" yet somehow nobody learns anything and nothing develops.

But here's the thing: It doesn't have to be this way.

I recently talked with Dr. Leonard D. Lane, who helped build something called Fung Academy—a corporate learning program that actually works. Not "works" in the sense that it checks boxes and makes HR happy. Works in the sense that it fundamentally changed how a 115-year-old company operates.

And the principles behind why it works are surprisingly simple.

The Problem: We've Confused Training with Learning

Most companies treat learning like a vaccine. You get your shot, you're immune, you're done.

Need to teach people project management? There's a 3-hour course for that.

Want to improve leadership? There's a weekend retreat for that.

Trying to build innovation capabilities? There's a consultant with a TED talk for that.

But here's what nobody wants to admit: Training isn't learning.

Training is putting information in front of people. Learning is people fundamentally changing how they think and operate.

The difference matters.

Leonard told me something that stuck: "The networks that win are the networks that learn fastest."

Not the networks with the best training programs. The ones that actually fucking learn.

What Fung Group Did Differently

Fung Group is a Hong Kong-based trading company. They connect Western brands with Asian factories. They're the middleman, which in 2025 sounds like a terrible business to be in.

Except they realized something: In a world that's moving from analog to digital at exponential speed, the most valuable thing you can do is learn faster than everyone else.

So in 2010, they made a decision. They were going to build a corporate academy. Not the fake kind that exists on paper. A real one.

And they were going to do it right.

Here's What "Right" Looks Like:

1. They Started at the Top (Not the Bottom)

Most corporate training starts in HR and stays there, slowly suffocating under the weight of bureaucracy and budget cuts.

Fung Academy reports directly to the Group Chairman. The CEO. The top of the food chain.

Why? Because if learning isn't a strategic priority for the person who runs the company, it'll get cut the moment things get tough. And things always get tough.

Leonard was blunt about this: "Don't attempt it from the middle. Don't attempt it from the L&D group. Go straight to your chairman."

This isn't about playing politics. It's about survival. If learning matters—really matters—it has to be protected.

2. They Made It About Capabilities, Not Courses

Here's a question most companies can't answer: What specific capabilities do you need to win in five years?

Not "What skills should we train?" but "What capabilities do we need to build to survive and thrive in a world that's changing faster than we can plan for?"

Fung's answer was clear: They needed leaders who could navigate complexity. They needed middle managers who understood supply chains at a deep level. And they needed everyone to understand exponential change.

So they didn't create courses. They created experiences.

They partnered with MIT to run a two-week leadership program—not to teach content, but to build context. To help leaders understand how global forces were reshaping their industry.

They brought Stanford to Hong Kong to train 1,000 middle managers on supply chain optimization.

They imported Singularity University to prepare people for exponential technological change.

Every program was off-site. No phones. No "I'll just check Slack real quick." Complete immersion.

3. They Changed the Language from "Cost" to "Investment"

This is subtle but crucial.

When learning is a cost, it gets cut. When it's an investment, it gets measured.

Fung Academy started as a cost center (unavoidable). But over time, they evolved to a three-part model:

• One-third pure R&D (looking ahead, experimenting)

• One-third paid by business units (they invest in their people)

• One-third shared costs (strategic projects)

The shift in language changed everything. Business leaders stopped asking "How much is this costing us?" and started asking "What return are we getting on this investment?"

And here's the clever bit: They tied leadership compensation to how many people they had ready for capability-building programs.

Suddenly, learning wasn't something that happened to you. It was something you invested in.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Knowledge

Here's where it gets philosophical.

I asked Leonard how they preserve knowledge. Because if you're building an academy, running programs, bringing in experts—how do you make sure all that knowledge doesn't just evaporate?

His answer surprised me: They don't really try.

Instead, they "put knowledge into the flow of work." They teach people skills in the context of real projects. They make learning part of doing.

And here's the uncomfortable truth: Most knowledge isn't worth preserving.

What matters isn't having a database of everything everyone has ever learned. What matters is building people who know how to learn, who know who to ask, and who can adapt quickly when things change.

Leonard's goal wasn't to build better employees. It was to build "exponential learners."

People who get better at getting better.

Why This Matters (Even If You Don't Run a Company)

You're probably not going to build a corporate academy. Most people won't.

But the principles matter:

Learning is strategic, not tactical.

Don't ask "What skills do I need?" Ask "What capabilities will I need to win in a world that's changing faster than I can predict?"

Learning happens in context, not isolation.

You don't learn by reading. You learn by doing. Put learning in your workflow, not separate from it.

Build a network, not a library.

You don't need to know everything. You need to know who to ask. Leonard runs Fung Academy with four core people. They orchestrate networks of experts.

Incentives drive behavior.

If you want to learn, structure your life so that learning is rewarded. Don't rely on motivation. Build systems.

The Real Challenge

Most corporate training fails because it's built on a lie: That we can predict what people need to know and deliver it efficiently.

But the world doesn't work that way anymore.

The S-curve—the time between major disruptions—used to be 20-30 years. Now it's 12-18 months.

You can't train your way out of that. You can only learn your way through it.

And learning isn't about courses or certifications or weekend retreats.

It's about fundamentally changing how you think, how you operate, and how quickly you can adapt when everything changes.

Which, let's be honest, is pretty much constantly.

Want the Full Story?

If this resonates, listen to Yaniv Corem's full conversation with Dr. Leonard Lane on The School of Innovation podcast. It's 40 minutes that might change how you think about learning, organizations, and what it takes to stay relevant when the world won't stop moving.

Because here's the thing about learning: Everyone says they value it. But very few people are willing to do what it actually takes.

The question is: Are you?