Most organisations don’t struggle with wanting to train people. They struggle with the next question:
Where will the training content actually come from?
You can have an LMS, a compliance calendar, and a manager who “owns onboarding”… and still end up with empty courses, outdated PDFs, and inconsistent learning from team to team. Tribal Habits calls this the “empty LMS” problem: you’ve got the platform, but the training content exists mostly in theory.
When you zoom out, there are only two real sources of training content:
- External knowledge – purchased or brought in from outside (course providers, consultants, industry training, short courses, conferences, regulators, professional bodies).
- Internal knowledge – what your organisation already knows (subject matter experts, managers, experienced staff, internal documents, systems, customer processes, “how we do it here”).
Both can work. Both can fail. The trick is choosing the right source for the right topic—then building a system that lets you mix them without creating a mess.
External training content: when it’s worth paying for
External content is attractive for one simple reason: it feels fast. You can buy a program, book a facilitator, subscribe to a library, and tick the “training delivered” box.
That can be the right move in a few common scenarios.
1) You genuinely don’t have the knowledge in-house
If you’re entering a new field, adopting new technology, or responding to regulatory change, external training can fill real gaps. This is especially common in technical areas, industry certifications, and specialist compliance topics.
2) You need credibility, neutrality, or a circuit-breaker
Sometimes internal training doesn’t land because of politics, history, or fatigue. An external voice can help reset the conversation—especially for leadership, culture, and behavioural topics.
Harvard Business Review has written about how knowledge-sharing breaks down as organisations grow (distance, turnover, and structural separation all get in the way). That same reality can also block internal training messages—even when they’re correct.
3) The method and facilitation are the real value
In some cases, you’re paying for delivery quality: facilitation skills, discussion design, coaching, or practice-based learning. The content might be generic, but the experience is strong.
The risks of external content (and why it often disappoints)
External training tends to fail for two reasons:
Risk #1: You pay for “good” content that doesn’t fit your reality
External programs are built to suit many organisations. That means they often skip the messy parts that matter most: your tools, your customer promises, your approval pathways, your internal constraints.
When learners have to do all the “translation work” themselves (“how does this apply to us?”), engagement drops—and behaviour rarely changes.
Risk #2: It can cost more than you think
The purchase price is only part of the cost. Add:
- staff time away from work
- travel or scheduling load
- ongoing refreshes (or re-purchases)
- follow-up training to embed the change
- rework when it doesn’t land
This is one reason many organisations “do training” but still don’t see consistent performance lift.
A practical reality: external training works best when the topic is broadly standardised (industry knowledge, widely shared technical skills, compliance fundamentals). It gets riskier as the topic becomes more “how we operate here”.
How to de-risk external training (without becoming a training detective)
If you do go external, treat it like procurement—not inspiration.
A simple checklist:
- Ask for examples of how the provider adapts content to different organisations
- Check evidence of outcomes, not just testimonials
- Confirm update frequency (especially for compliance and regulatory topics)
- Plan your internal follow-through (what changes after the session?)
- Decide what gets captured so it doesn’t vanish after delivery
If you want a deeper set of questions, Tribal Habits has a strong list you can use as a template when assessing providers.
Internal training content: where most organisations get the best returns
Internal knowledge is the stuff that makes your organisation yours:
- your customer process
- your systems and tools
- your standards
- your way of handling risk
- the real examples your people relate to
It’s usually lower cost to access (you’re already paying for it through salaries), and it’s often far more relevant.
ISO even has a dedicated knowledge management systems standard (ISO 30401) focused on helping organisations manage and improve how knowledge is captured and shared. That alone signals how central internal knowledge has become as a formal capability.
Where internal content shines
1) Induction and onboarding
New starters don’t need a generic course on “communication”. They need:
- how your organisation works
- what “good” looks like here
- how to use your tools
- who approves what
- how to avoid common early mistakes
If your onboarding isn’t built on internal knowledge, it becomes a patchwork of tribal memory and guesswork.
2) Unique processes, tools, and systems
If you have internal SOPs, templates, or systems—external training can’t teach those in a useful way. Internal content is the only option.
3) Customer delivery and service standards
Even if you sell the same service as competitors, your delivery style, service levels, and relationship expectations are different. This is prime internal content.
4) “How we avoid mistakes here”
Every organisation has scar tissue: incidents, near-misses, client escalations, quality failures, audit findings.
Capturing those lessons into training is one of the fastest ways to reduce repeat problems—because the content is real, specific, and believable.
The risks of internal content (and how to avoid them)
Internal knowledge is powerful, but it has its own failure modes.
Risk #1: It stays in someone’s head
Your best SMEs are busy. Their knowledge is high value and low availability. If you rely on live sessions or “just ask Sam”, you don’t have a training system—you have a bottleneck.
Risk #2: It becomes a document dump
Uploading policies, PDFs, and PowerPoints isn’t training. It’s storage.
If learners can’t practice, apply, or prove understanding, you won’t get consistent behaviour change.
Risk #3: It goes stale quietly
Internal content changes when systems change, roles change, products change, or regulations shift. Without ownership and review cycles, internal content becomes wrong—and nobody notices until something breaks.
A modern approach is to build internal content in smaller modules, assign owners, and review on a schedule (or at least trigger reviews when processes change).
A simple decision framework: internal vs external
Use these four questions to decide where to start:
1) Is the topic standardised or unique?
- Standardised: external content can work well (baseline compliance, common technical skills)
- Unique: internal content wins (your systems, your client process, your standards)
2) Is speed more important than fit?
- Need it live next week: start external, then customise internally
- Need behaviour change: start internal, add external gaps if needed
3) Do you need credibility or neutrality?
- Yes: use external voice, but anchor it with internal follow-up
- No: internal is usually enough
4) Will the topic change often?
- High change: internal ownership matters (you can update fast)
- Low change: external may be fine if updates are guaranteed
The best approach for most teams: build the core internally, supplement externally
A practical mix looks like this:
Internal first (your “operating system”)
- onboarding
- systems training
- role expectations
- internal processes
- your customer/service standards
- local policies and “how we do it here”
External second (your “add-ons”)
- certifications and formal qualifications
- specialist expertise you don’t have
- industry benchmarks and best practice
- external facilitation for leadership/culture resets
This approach also matches what many organisations are seeing in practice: learning isn’t just courses anymore. It includes self-directed learning, peer learning, and structured development pathways—especially in organisations without dedicated L&D teams.
How to make internal knowledge usable as training (without turning SMEs into course designers)
Internal training doesn’t have to mean building everything from scratch, alone, in PowerPoint.
A realistic workflow:
- Pick one high-impact process (onboarding, a compliance risk area, a recurring customer issue)
- Interview the SME for 30–45 minutes (record examples, common mistakes, decision points)
- Turn it into a short module (10–15 minutes) with:
- a real scenario
- quick checks for understanding
- “what good looks like” examples
- Test with 5–10 learners, then revise
- Assign an owner and add a review date
If you want a menu of ways to capture knowledge (simple through to more structured), this older Tribal Habits piece is still a useful reference point.
Where Tribal Habits fits (if you want the internal + external mix to actually work)
The biggest blocker for internal content isn’t ideas—it’s authoring friction. If building a module feels like designing a website, internal knowledge won’t get captured.
Tribal Habits is built around lowering that barrier, with tools to create training content directly in the platform (without specialist skills).
It’s also why “where will your training content come from?” is one of the first questions we recommend asking during LMS selection—before features, before reporting, before integrations.
See how internal training can be easier
If you’re trying to turn internal expertise into consistent onboarding, process, or compliance training (without relying on PDFs and live sessions), it’s worth seeing how Tribal Habits supports that workflow.
FAQ
What’s the fastest way to decide between internal and external training?
Start with one question: Is this topic unique to how we operate? If yes, go internal first. If no, external may be fine—then customise where it matters.
Can we rely on off-the-shelf course libraries for compliance?
They can help with baseline awareness, but they rarely reflect your policies, processes, and risk controls. Many teams use off-the-shelf content as a starting point, then build internal modules that show how compliance works day-to-day.
How do we stop internal training content becoming outdated?
Assign an owner per module and set a light review cycle (even quarterly for high-change areas). Trigger reviews when a policy, system, or process changes.
What if our SMEs don’t have time?
Don’t ask them to “build training”. Ask for 30 minutes of knowledge capture, then have someone else package it into a short module. Keep it small, publish version 1, improve later.
