Not every traineeship succeeds. This is usually not due to the commitment of talent managers, who are generally enthusiastic people with very good ideas, but to the degree of depth in the training programme. Sometimes there is too little depth and the programme is designed too generally. Talent managers create a nice combination of workplace assignments and practice different personal skills with their trainees, but leave it at that. The opposite also happens: trainees spend too little time on the “real” work and get lost in endless analyses of childhood and upbringing during training. In that case, insights are not translated enough into practical tools for the workplace. Not ideal. But how much depth does your talent programme actually need? And at what point in the programme? We explain it in this blog.
Beliefs eat skills for breakfast
It is generally assumed that someone’s ability determines their behaviour. If a trainee is well informed and knows how to conduct a business conversation, surely they will have no problem during a meeting with senior management. The knowledge and skills are there, after all. Yet not every trainee sticks their neck out when they have something to say in a meeting. Not because they do not know how, but because an internal belief prevents them from showing the right behaviour.
Recently, we delivered the module “Convincing others in difficult conversations” for starting Millennials at one of our clients. During the opening round, one participant said that in meetings he gives up his own substantive point too quickly. His explanation: “I want to stay friends with everyone.” The belief I need to be friends with my colleagues and I cannot be if I challenge them on content carried more weight than the right knowledge and skills. This means behavioural change only emerges when we adjust the engine of our behaviour: our beliefs.
Targeted depth
The need to stay friends with everyone; the fear of opening up to a colleague or manager. These are exactly the questions through which a talent programme can gain depth. By taking something practical, such as a meeting, as the starting point, you explore with trainees where the fear comes from and what beliefs they hold about themselves. Does the trainee believe that everything they say must be perfect, a typical Millennial pattern? Then look for the underlying causes of that perfectionism and work together on a milder self-image. Does someone have a great talent for presenting, but avoids the stage because they fear being judged? Then the training needs to go beyond tips and tricks. It needs to reach the belief that blocks the behaviour.
This is what we mean by targeted depth. You do not dig endlessly for the sake of digging. You connect personal themes directly to the situations in which trainees need to act. That is how depth becomes practical.
Do not start too deep too soon
Depth is important, but timing matters. In the first phase of a traineeship, participants are often still trying to understand the organisation, their assignment, their colleagues and the basic rules of working life. If you immediately dive into deeply personal themes, the training can feel disconnected from their daily reality. Start by helping trainees land: what is expected of me, how do I plan my work, how do I ask for help, how do I communicate professionally?
Once that foundation is in place, there is more room for personal themes. Then depth is not a detour, but an accelerator. Trainees can connect their insights to real situations and experiment with new behaviour at work.
From insight to behaviour
A talent programme with enough depth does not stop at insight. The question is always: what will you do differently tomorrow? Which conversation will you have? Which pattern will you interrupt? Which belief will you challenge in practice? Depth only becomes valuable when it leads to visible behaviour in the workplace.
That requires trainers who can work with both the human being and the professional context. They need to recognise when a practical skill question has a deeper layer, and also know when it is time to return to concrete action. That balance is what makes a programme powerful.
Conclusion
A strong talent programme needs depth, but not endless depth. It needs targeted depth: connected to real work situations, timed well and translated into action. If you manage that, trainees do not only learn new skills. They begin to understand what drives their behaviour and how they can change it. That is where real development begins.