It is a question that is often asked in the World of Education – ‘what’s the difference between teaching and training? Are a teacher and a trainer the same thing and more importantly, are the end results identical?
I love the response from ChatGPT on the subject:
Prompt: What is the difference between teaching and training?
‘Great question—people use them interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing.
Teaching is about building understanding.
- Focuses on why things work, not just how.
- Aims to develop thinking, judgment, and the ability to apply ideas in new situations.
- Often broader and longer-term.
- Example: teaching physics, philosophy, or how writing works.
Training is about building performance.
- Focuses on how to do a specific task correctly and consistently.
- Aims for competence, efficiency, and repeatable results.
- Usually narrower and more short-term.
- Example: training someone to use a machine, follow a procedure, or perform a job role.
A simple way to remember it:
- Teaching = understanding and transfer
- Training = execution and repetition
They overlap a lot in real life. The best instructors often do both: they teach the concepts so learners understand and train the skills so learners can actually perform.’
I also love the way that ChatGPT complimented me on the question! That’s a cool technique that every trainer uses also. Even if you think it’s a crap question you tell the student that it’s a great question.
I often talk about, and refer to transferable knowledge and a lot of that comes from being taught something. It is usually a range of broader knowledge and skills that you are able to adapt to a given situation. For example an accountant can probably do simple maths as they were taught at school, but they are trained to do complex tax returns using some of the transferable skills they learned at school. So the two do go hand in hand.
Training is a fundamental part of life and the skills that you learn as you bounce through life are either going to stay with you if you keep using them or continue to develop them or fade away if you never use them. I think that is called skill-fade.
ChatGPT reckons that a simple way to remember the definition of training is ‘execution and repetition’ and that is simply doing something and continuing to do it until it becomes second nature or a skill for life. However these life skills can also be transferable.
There are many skills that I learned in the military which I no longer need. I learned how to handle a weapon, march in a ‘reasonably’ straight line and do things like fire fighting and first aid. These were not my core roles but through execution and repetition the training stuck. I reckon I can still do these things today – even though it has been several years since I last used them. I am not certain that marching and shooting are transferable skills however (in my current role).
Towards the end of my service career I was involved in threat intelligence analysis and the processes and tools needed to make an assessment or form some kind of policy. These were important things to learn and implement as people’s lives depended upon them. It got to the point where I did it so often and continued to update my skills and experience (and knowledge) that it became second nature but one of the most important outcomes from my training was that I was in control.
That doesn’t mean to say that I was always right or operating in my comfort zone, but my training allowed me to know what to do, when to do it and when to ask for help. I had control of that.
Fast forward to the world of cybersecurity and loads of transferable skills come with you. Those that you learn at school through good teaching and those that you learn at work or on training courses through good training. These 2 elements put you in control of your environment and give you the competence and confidence to work to the best of your ability but at the same time know when to ask for help. That’s proper control.
And it doesn’t matter where you are on the food chain. Newcomers and apprentices soon learn the tricks of trade through good management and training and are encouraged to seek help and guidance. Old hands may have learned a lot but still recognise when they need to seek the help and guidance of others. I would probably suggest that anybody who thinks that they can survive without help – is set for failure quickly.
The art of being in control is identifying what you know and more importantly, identifying gaps in your knowledge and skills. Sometimes you don’t even know there are gaps until you are under the cosh and that is when if feels like you have lost control.
So if that happens – learn from it. Take a positive step to correct your skills gaps and come out fighting stronger. It’s a constant within the world of cybersecurity as the world of tech doesn’t sit still.
This year we will face a growing need to address some skills gaps or ask for help.
AI will continue to be a focus for 2026, and this may be simple areas such as business needs alignment, but areas such as data protection and cyber defence will also need to be addressed. Now is a great time to be looking at training courses as they are starting to be more mature and advanced in their concepts.
The basics will still need to be addressed and things like user awareness, business resilience and incident response will all be skill areas that will need to be sharpened.
Take control and prosper!
