I was reading Seth Godin the other morning, and one line stopped me cold:
"It takes about 900,000 minutes to become a board-certified dermatologist. At that point, you might be very skilled and well-informed. It takes less than nine minutes to make your patient feel seen, understood and reassured. If you skip the 9 minutes, you wasted the 900,000."
As someone who thinks about workplace development, I immediately wondered: Does this apply to employee training? Are we investing thousands of minutes in programs while missing the crucial moments that actually matter?
The Numbers Don't Lie (But They Don't Tell the Whole Story Either)
I asked Perplexity to dig into the data, and here's what came back:
The average employee receives 47 hours of training per year—that's 2,820 minutes. Compliance training alone eats up over 5 hours annually. Organizations pour resources into LMS platforms, course design, instructor time, and lost productivity during training sessions.
But here's the uncomfortable question: How much of that investment actually lands?
The Training Paradox
The research Perplexity surfaced points to something fascinating: the effectiveness of training often hinges on how relevant and engaging those moments are for the learner. Not the total hours. Not the production value of the videos. Not even the comprehensiveness of the content.
It's the moments when employees feel the training is for them—personally meaningful, directly applicable, genuinely valuable.
One source put it perfectly: "Training sessions are vital to the learning process, but they are only one step in the learning process and this should never be forgotten."
We've mistaken the delivery mechanism for the transformation.
Reframing the Equation
Here's my attempt at a training equivalent to Godin's dermatology stat:
"You might spend 2,820 minutes training employees each year, but it only takes a few minutes to make them feel that training is meaningful and personally relevant. If you skip those crucial moments, the rest loses its value."
Think about your last training experience. What do you actually remember? Probably not the 45-minute module on data security protocols. More likely, it's:
- The moment your manager explained why this skill matters for your specific role
- The 3-minute conversation with a colleague about how they applied the training
- The quick acknowledgment that you're making progress
- The brief check-in asking what you actually need to learn next
Those micro-moments—the training equivalent of making a patient feel seen—are where the real ROI lives.
What the Data Shows About Those "9 Minutes"
The research on microlearning backs this up. Short, personalized learning experiences dramatically boost engagement and retention. Not because they replace comprehensive training, but because they create those connection points that make everything else stick.
Employees engage most with learning when:
- It feels relevant to their immediate challenges
- They feel ownership over their development path
- Someone takes a moment to connect the dots for them
We're so focused on building the 2,820 minutes that we forget to design for the moments that make those minutes matter.
The Question That Haunts Me
How much of corporate training is the equivalent of a dermatologist who's brilliant at diagnosis but never makes eye contact?
We've built elaborate learning ecosystems—LMS platforms, competency frameworks, certification programs, quarterly training calendars. We measure completion rates and quiz scores. We invest in production quality and instructional design.
But are we designing for the moments when someone feels seen as a learner?
The moments when training shifts from something happening to them to something that's for them?
What This Means for Tomorrow's Training
I don't have this figured out. But Godin's observation—and the parallel in training data—suggests we might need to flip our priorities.
What if we spent less energy adding more content and more energy engineering those crucial connection moments? What if onboarding focused less on information transfer and more on making new hires feel understood? What if manager training included specific practices for those 3-minute conversations that make learning stick?
The 2,820 minutes matter. The expertise we're building matters.
But if we skip the moments that make employees feel the training is meaningful, personally relevant, and designed for their success—we might be wasting all of it.
What are the "9 minutes" in your training programs? The moments where learners feel truly seen? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
