When I traveled to Latin America as a trainer for Chili’s, the locals had a word for me: capacitadora. It means something close to “the one who makes others capable.” I’ve carried that word with me ever since – not because it sounds impressive, but because it draws a line between what we often do in this industry and what we’re actually supposed to be doing.
We are very good at telling people what to do. We are great at building programs and materials. But making someone truly capable – able to think, adapt, and respond in real time when the script breaks – that’s a different level. And it’s the level our industry actually requires.
Right now, we’re asking more of our field leaders than ever before. Many of them are stepping into training responsibilities without a background in L&D, often for the first time. And at the same time, we’re expecting them to execute strategies that were designed outside of their reality.
That gap between what we build and what can actually live on the floor is where a lot of our work quietly falls apart. Are we designing training that can actually be executed in the environments we’re asking it to thrive in? Are we involving the field early enough to understand what’s realistic? Or are we creating something in a vacuum and just hoping it works once it hits the floor?
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to fall into that trap. We take pride in what we build, and sometimes we want it delivered exactly as designed. But the more I’ve done this work, the more I’ve realized that control doesn’t lead to consistency, buy-in does. And buy-in comes from collaboration.
I was reminded of this early in my career when my Director of Training at Tony Roma’s told me that one of the things he loved most about having me on the training team was that I always thought about the field first, because I had been an operator once before and always would be one at heart. That left an impression on me. It’s been a constant reminder that I do this work for them, not for me.
When we bring operators into the process, when we understand their constraints, and when we design with flexibility in mind, we’re far more likely to create something that actually gets used. Those field trainers understand this, so their buy-in is critical to the success of what we create.
Because here’s the reality: the script will break.
I had a moment recently that really brought this home. I was at a campus café, ordered a sandwich, and due to a system glitch, the order never showed up on their screen. The team member looked at me and said, “I can’t make the order until it appears on the screen.”
Now, technically, they were following their training. But in doing so, they missed the entire point of hospitality. Somewhere along the way, we had trained them what to do, but not how to think (and serve the guest). That’s the gap.
Enablement is what fills it. It’s what allows someone to step outside of a rigid process and make the right decision for the guest, for the business, and in the moment. But enablement only goes so far without empowerment – giving people not just the skills to act, but the confidence and the authority to trust themselves in that moment. And neither comes from more content. They come from building capability.
That also shows up in how we think about standards. I don’t believe we lower them. Our standards should always represent the best version of what we’re trying to deliver. But we do have to recognize the reality in which those standards are being executed.
If a team is short-staffed and under pressure, our role isn’t to stand back and point out what’s wrong. It’s to step in, support where needed, and then coach afterward. That’s how development actually happens.
The same mindset applies when we talk about measuring impact. I’m less interested in what happened during the training itself and more interested in what happens after. Did behavior change? Did results improve? And most importantly – did it last?
I’ve seen programs create a quick spike in performance and business metrics, but the real success is when that improvement sustains over time. You know you’ve built something meaningful when you can identify the applicable business metrics prior to the training and track them consistently for up to one year.
Technology is changing how we do this work, and I think that’s largely a good thing. AI is a powerful tool for analyzing data, surfacing patterns, and accelerating design. Coming from my current academic role, I see teams using it in genuinely exciting ways. But I also see a growing temptation to let it do the thinking for us, and that’s where I get cautious. The risk of eroding the very thinking skills we’re trying to build in others is real. The better question isn’t whether to use AI. It’s whether we’re using it to become sharper, or as a shortcut around the hard work of building real capability.
So, for me, the balance is this: use AI to enhance our thinking, not replace it. Our industry is human at its core. And the more we lean into that – into building people who can think, adapt, and connect – the stronger we become.
Capacitadora. The one who makes others capable. It’s a harder job than it sounds, and a more important one than we sometimes give it credit for. When we commit to making others capable, really commit to it, training stops being script to be followed and starts enabling our teams to shift the business and empower themselves to be great operators.
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