Rethinking Learning: Why curiosity, not compliance, is the key to success

When Shaurav Sen, a veteran business leader and author of the thought-provoking new book “Training is Broken,” looks back on three decades in corporate leadership, his verdict is unequivocal: the way we train, develop, and equip employees for today’s world is fundamentally flawed. 

But Sen is not simply another voice decrying the state of learning and development. In his measured, human, and deeply practical style, he offers a blueprint for how organisations—and the people who lead them—can truly fix what’s broken and build learning cultures that work in a world transformed by technology, data, and relentless change. 

Sen’s journey to writing “Training is Broken” didn’t begin with a single ‘aha!’ moment. Instead, it was a pattern that became, as he puts it, “impossible to ignore.” Despite working with some of the best minds in learning and development, and seeing enormous investments in people, technology, and programmes, the outcomes too often remained mediocre.

“The turning point for me,” Sen reflects, “came only after I stepped away from my traditional role. When you’re part of the system, it’s hard to be objective. We kept refining workshops, updating content, and adding follow-ups—but we never questioned whether the very architecture was wrong.”

This realisation was personal as much as professional. “I asked myself, when have I truly learned something that stuck with me? Almost never in a formal programme. It happened when I was living the problem, when I was curious to solve it, and when the consequences of not learning were real.”

One of the central arguments in Sen’s book is that learning and development (L&D) has fallen into what he calls “the measurement trap.”

“Dashboards glow green—90-95% completion rates, high satisfaction scores. But at the same time, only 12% of learners apply new skills, and less than a quarter believe that training improves job performance. That’s not a reporting problem—it’s a philosophical one.”

We measure what is easy—attendance, completion, satisfaction—but not what truly matters: behavioural change, capability, and impact. “Managers want to know if their teams can actually do the job better. Clients care if your service improves. No one really cares about completion rates.”

Sen proposes a radical shift in what L&D measures, arguing for three new metrics:

Time to Competency: Instead of measuring ‘time in training’, organisations should track how long it takes for someone to independently perform a skill in their actual job. “Managers care about capability, not how many hours you spent in a classroom.”

Manager-Observed Capability Change: After 30, 60, or 90 days, have structured conversations with the manager: Has the employee demonstrably improved? If not, the training didn’t transfer.

Voluntary Re-Engagement Rate: After a training programme, how many employees proactively seek out more resources, conversations, or learning? “If training genuinely resonates, people will want more. That’s the true test of impact.”

One of Sen’s most controversial suggestions is to make as much training as possible optional—except for compliance or safety requirements.

“Imagine the power of not making leadership, cultural, or soft skills training mandatory. Instead, market them internally, let people choose, and then learn from who shows up—and who doesn’t. It’s the best diagnostic tool. If no one attends, your offering is irrelevant. If people come and rave about it, you know you’re on the right track.”

He acknowledges that this flies in the face of decades of ‘tick-box’ training culture, but argues it is essential for genuine engagement. “People treat mandatory training as just another task. If you make it optional and people still choose it, that’s when you know you’re adding value.”

With AI and instant information at everyone’s fingertips, Sen believes the traditional role of L&D as a content conveyor is over.

“In the past, L&D’s job was to tell you what you needed to know. Now, anyone can Google anything or ask an AI at 2am and get a contextualised answer. The value L&D brings is not in knowledge transfer—but in provoking curiosity and creating the conditions for people to care about their own learning.”

He describes the new role as a ‘curiosity architect’. “No AI can tell you what to ask, only answer what you do ask. L&D’s job is to create moments of productive discomfort, to spark curiosity so learners become passionate about exploring further. That’s how you get real, sustained learning.”

So why do so many organisations persist with complex, expensive, and often ineffective training frameworks?

“Complexity doesn’t persist because it works—it serves powerful interests,” Sen says candidly. “If a consultant brings you a simple solution, you doubt its value. Complex frameworks justify budgets and effort, and provide cover if things don’t work. But from a learner’s point of view, simplicity is what sticks.”

He argues that the system—vendors, boards, CEOs, and even employees who want to collect digital badges—perpetuates this complexity. “It’s learning theatre. We measure the wrong things, implement overblown frameworks, and forget that the human brain can only handle four chunks of information at a time.”

Another major theme in “Training is Broken” is the mismatch between when employees are trained and when they actually need the learning.

“Too much training is ‘just in case’—given in advance, in case someone needs it years later. By then, it’s forgotten or irrelevant. Instead, we should be moving towards ‘just in time’ learning, triggered by real events, signals from business data, or employees themselves declaring a need.”

Sen outlines three triggers for ‘just in time’ learning:

“AI and data now allow us to get much closer to delivering learning when it’s actually needed. It’s not about being perfect, but about getting closer to the moment of need.”

Central to Sen’s approach is his ‘Spark’ framework—a five-step model for designing effective learning experiences that can often be delivered in two hours rather than three days.

S – Surface: Start by surfacing existing beliefs and assumptions without judgement.

P – Provoke: Introduce a surprising, counter-intuitive fact or contradiction to create cognitive dissonance.

A – Activate: Translate that intellectual disruption into personal, emotional relevance—so the learner cares.

R – Reveal: Reframe the learner’s mental model, showing a better way forward.

K – Kick-Start: Provide simple, actionable resources or guides to help learners continue their journey independently.

“It’s not about slashing costs,” Sen explains. “It’s about focusing on what genuinely works for the human brain. When you trigger curiosity and emotional relevance, people go deeper and remember more. A seven-minute video with the right spark can be far more effective than a three-day workshop with 15 competencies.”

Asked what he’d do if he could build an L&D function from scratch, with no legacy systems and full access to AI, Sen doesn’t hesitate.

“First, I’d change the question. Instead of ‘How do we deliver the right content to the right people at the right time?’, I’d ask: ‘How do we create the conditions for people to become genuinely curious about getting better at their work?’”

He outlines four building blocks:

Curiosity Ignition: Make sparking curiosity the central design principle.

AI as First Responder: Let AI answer basic questions and surface needs—then use those insights to make human-led sessions far more relevant.

Managers as Multipliers: Make line managers the primary force for learning transfer, not the L&D team.

Marketplace Not Catalogue: For all but compliance training, create an internal marketplace where employees choose what they want to learn, not a catalogue of mandatory courses.

And what would he throw out? “Completion rate dashboards, long multi-day programmes, and mandatory attendance for non-critical training. These are relics of a system that’s failed.”

Since publishing “Training is Broken” in January, Sen said that he has been inundated with feedback from learning leaders, CEOs, and employees. The most common refrain? “This book gives words to what we’ve all been thinking.” Many have started experimenting with optional training, new metrics, and more open conversations about what’s truly working—and what’s performative theatre.

Sen has made the book and all its resources available online for free and open, determined to ignite a broad, honest conversation about learning in the digital age. You can learn more about his book at https://shaurav.org.

While his primary audience may be L&D professionals, Sen stresses that the responsibility for fixing training lies with everyone: boards, CEOs, consultants, and employees themselves.

“We all say ‘people are our greatest asset,” he notes with a wry smile. “If that’s true, we need to stop settling for learning theatre. The digital age, and especially AI, gives us an extraordinary opportunity to rethink everything. The time to act is now.”

In a world of relentless change, Sen’s message is both urgent and optimistic: Training is broken, yes—but with courage, curiosity, and a willingness to challenge convention, we can finally fix it. And in doing so, we might just unlock the true potential of people at work.