Training, Copilot and desperately seeking judgement

Training may be on life-support.

A client said to me recently: "Honestly? I've given up on training. People ask for it. I organise it. Then they don't turn up."

It's hard to argue. If I had a spare hour tomorrow, I could spend it listening to somebody walk through a slide deck.

Or I could spend it with Copilot, exploring the issue in exactly the way I need.

I think I know where I'd learn more.

For a long time, training was one of the few ways organisations could provide scalable access to expertise. If you wanted people to understand a topic, one trusted method was to bring in someone who knew more than they did. Training’s role was to help democratise that expertise. And, of course, good training was always about more than just knowledge transfer

Today, expertise is a click away.

Summaries, examples, frameworks, checklists and practical guidance are generated in seconds. Often in a form tailored to the question you're asking.

To keep relevant, anyone providing training must keep asking themselves: in this new world, what’s the point of training?

My answer: training's job hasn't disappeared, it's changed – from delivering knowledge and expertise to helping build judgement. That distinction runs through everything below.

From expertise scarcity to judgement scarcity

The challenge today for most of us is making sense of all the information. Recognising what matters. Spotting risk. Weighing competing considerations. Exercising judgement. Turning knowledge into action. In truth, the best training has always been about these things.

But as information becomes easier to access, they become much more important.

Interestingly, regulation seems to have noticed this too. And for once, it’s not lagging behind. Look at the EHRC and ACAS guidance on preventing sexual harassment. Look at the FCA's focus on non-financial misconduct.

Different rules. Similar direction of travel.

They're not primarily asking people to know the rules. They're asking people to recognise risk, respond appropriately and make good decisions in real situations. And that’s everyone by the way, not just managers.

This feels like quite a profound shift.

When Byrne Dean started, our message to managers was relatively simple: Recognise risk. Pause. Ask someone who knows.

Today, with expertise so readily available. The message is more grown up and, fundamentally more challenging: Recognise risk. Pause. Exercise good judgement.

And it’s not just your managers who have to exercise that good judgement. Everyone does.

How do we help people develop better judgement?

Just as a starter for ten; many people have a sense that judgement is something innate, that you're born with. And yes, young children possess the foundations of social and moral judgement. The raw materials for wisdom.

But nobody would suggest that a six-year-old could handle a complex grievance or navigate a difficult performance conversation. Because those capabilities develop over time. Through experience. Reflection. Challenge. Feedback. Exposure to different perspectives.

And in my view, they’re capabilities that develop most effectively with other people.

Nearly 23 years of working at Byrne Dean, equipping people for people problems, can be distilled into understanding three things that matter repeatedly:

- We recognise risk.

- We trust human connection.

- We go beyond compliance.

And, writing this blog, I’m becoming clearer, these are not just principles that shape our work. They're also the conditions in which good judgement develops.

Recognising risk

The questions we ask participants have never really been about information. They're questions about judgement. Typically, judgement about risk.

- "Would you say something at that point?"

- “Does that feel like a risk to you?"

- "How comfortable would you be defending that decision later?"

These are the conversations organisations increasingly need to create space for. Not because people don't know the rules. They usually do. But because they need more opportunities to think about how those rules apply in practice.

This is the bit Copilot can't give anyone – not the information, the conversation.

Trusting human connection

People often develop judgement by discussing situations with others. By hearing how colleagues view the same scenario. By appreciating different perspectives. By understanding where reasonable people disagree.

We get people talking in small groups about real workplace situations. We show people real jokes or comments/actions. Someone sees harmless banter. Someone else is asking how it landed for others. Maybe about how relevant it is that this happens regularly. By now, the person who saw harmless banter may be wondering.

Nobody’s learning a new rule. But they all have a richer understanding. Judgement develops. Through comparison. Through disagreement. Through reflection. Through perspective-taking. Through greater self-awareness and a stronger shared understanding of what good judgement looks like.

Sharing like this feels particularly important in areas such as leadership, workplace culture, non-financial misconduct and preventing sexual harassment. And my sense is very much that, the more technology shapes how we work, the more valuable these human conversations become. It's how trust and shared responsibility are built. Both are critical and neither can be built sitting alone with Copilot.

Beyond compliance

The final piece took me longer to articulate.

What's being asked of organisations today is not simply compliance.

The EHRC is not really asking whether people can recite guidance. The FCA is not really asking whether people can remember a policy. They're asking something much more demanding.

Can people notice concerns early?

Can they talk about them?

Can they respond appropriately?

That's not a compliance challenge. It's a human challenge.

Notice.

Discuss.

Respond.

Those three capabilities sit at the centre of almost every healthy workplace. Technology can help us access expertise and understand a policy. It can help us think through options. But it cannot create relational intelligence. It cannot build trust. It cannot create shared responsibility.

And it cannot care.

That remains our job.

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