Sources: 2026-08 / week-1
Claim ledger for "You Invest in Capability Every Year. Why Doesn't Performance Follow?"
| Claim (as written) | Source | Link | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| "A meta-analysis of 81 independent samples found no significant relationship between prehire work experience and performance in a new organization." Experience predicted neither subsequent performance nor retention. | Van Iddekinge, Arnold, Frieder & Roth, "A meta-analysis of the criterion-related validity of prehire work experience," Personnel Psychology 72(4), 2019, 571-598 | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/peps.12335 | verified |
| Competency, experience, skill and habit are each "a form of memory," and memory is composed of multiple distinct brain systems. | Squire, "Memory systems of the brain: a brief history and current perspective," Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 82(3), 2004, 171-177 | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15464402/ | verified |
| "Human processing capacity is limited, and capacity consumed by the demands already in front of someone is not available for acquiring anything new." | Sweller, "Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning," Cognitive Science 12(2), 1988, 257-285 | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4 | verified |
| "The transfer of training into improved job performance is far from automatic," occurring only under conditions most programmes do not control for, so training spend does not convert to performance on its own. | Blume, Ford, Baldwin & Huang, "Transfer of Training: A Meta-Analytic Review," Journal of Management 36(4), 2010, 1065-1105 (meta-analysis of 89 studies) | https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0149206309352880 | verified |
| The container and contents framing (brain capacity as the vessel, competency as what fills it). | Vanaya NeuroTech, Partner Certification Module 01, Neurometric Essentials v1.0, section 2.1 | Internal document | internal |
| "Brain capacity is a baseline rather than a fixed ceiling." | Vanaya NeuroTech, Module 01 section 2.1: capacity is "not a fixed verdict. It is a baseline that can be developed" | Internal document | internal |
Added on Dr. Lyra's request
Dr. Lyra asked for one global research data point showing that heavy training and development investment does not translate into performance. The defensible anchor is Blume et al. 2010 (above), a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 89 studies. Wording note: the rigorous literature does not support "training has no impact" (some meta-analyses, e.g. Lacerenza et al. 2017, show training works when well designed). What it supports is that transfer to performance is conditional and far from automatic, so the article says the spend "does not convert on its own." That is her point, stated to standard.
The punchy alternatives were rejected on the sourcing bar:
- "Only 10% of training transfers" is the debunked figure below (
cut). - "75% of executives rate L&D ineffective" is McKinsey, and the "$60B / $366B spent" figures are consultancy or industry-body numbers. All barred by the no-rival-consultancy sourcing rule.
Cut during sourcing
Two claims were pursued and dropped. Recorded so they are not revived later.
- "Only 10% of training transfers to the job." Traces through Baldwin and Ford
(1988) to an earlier claim whose empirical basis does not hold up. There is a
published paper framed around calling it "the 10% delusion." Same genre as the
transformation-failure statistics the briefing warns about.
cut - Executive failure rates in new roles. Sources give 30%, 40%, 47%, and 30 to
75 percent for substantially the same claim, mostly on consulting and coaching
sites. A range that wide is not a finding.
cut
Softened during sourcing
- The capability spend anchor. No usable figure exists. ATD-derived numbers in
circulation conflict badly (0.9% and 4.3% of payroll both appear), per-employee
figures swing by hundreds year to year, and the primary report is member-gated.
The article opens without a number and lets the reader supply their own, which is
more persuasive than a benchmark and cannot be challenged.
softened
Held in reserve
- Beilock & Carr on choking under pressure (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15686575/). Not used in week 1. The finding concerns working memory capacity specifically, in a lab math task under induced pressure, and it runs counter-intuitively: high working memory capacity individuals showed the decrements. Working memory is one member of the brain capacity set and not the one ANI measures, so generalizing it to brain capacity as a category would be a category error. If used in week 2, it must be scoped to working memory and to the task conditions studied.