The poet Maya Angelou once said we should train animals but educate people. That distinction applies to our own and our clients' evolution more than anywhere else. Every day thousands of organisations are wasting money on training but forget to provide education.
What is the difference? Just imagine your daughter explaining to you what her class did in school: "Mom, Dad, we had sex education in school today." And you know it is part of the curriculum, so it's no big deal.
Now imagine this: "Mom, Dad, we had sex training in school today." Would you then ask: "And how many boys did you train personally, honey?" Or, this: "And how many boys did you receive training from, honey?"
Can you feel the difference between training and education? So, here is a little comparison...
And when you only train people, they perish. Training only tells people what to do and how. Only education teaches them why to do it at all, and how to improve upon the currently used methods.
| Training Objective: Memorising and regurgitating a fellow professional's (a.k.a. instructor) opinion
Training usually describes a manager-driven organisation, based on command and control and the desperate maintenance of the status quo. |
Education Objective: Guiding people to find their own answers in a process of self-discovery and self-exploration.
Education usually describes a leader-driven organisation based on passion and innovation, thriving to make the world shake in excitement and anticipation. |
Over a century ago, Scottish inventor, lawyer, politician and the 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Henry Peter Brougham said...
"Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."
By the way, do you know that Peter was a great orator and was famous for making the longest speech in the House of Commons. His record was six hours. By the way, Peter's observation is the exact reason why schooling is training not education. Societies all over the world are in desperate need for sheep-type people who are easy to drive and enslave.
And when we look at the numbers, we can say the school system has been pretty successful with its training. Since the mid 90s, full-time employment and job security have been steadily marching to hell in a hand basket.
Yet, in 2009, most people are still desperately looking for safe and secure full-time work with great pay and excellent benefits. And they rather die than start taking their expertise to the market as independent talents.
Of course, for this reason many IT companies are scared shitless to offer broad education to their people. Once you see the big picture, you can't be manipulated so easily. And we all know that most managers manage by manipulation, thus opt for training to make their own jobs easier.
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