Volunteers and conscripts do not return the same person

Whether somebody had any say in attending is one of the more reliable signals about what will happen afterwards.

People arrive at training by very different routes. Some asked to come because they had hit a limit in their own work and wanted a way past it. Some were nominated by a manager who thought it would help. Some were sent because there were spare places, or because a roster required it, or because an incident occurred and attendance was the visible response. These are not variations in enthusiasm. They are variations in the relationship between the person and the content, and they show up long after the session in whether anything gets used.

The person who came with a problem has somewhere to put the answer. They already know the situation they intend to handle differently, and often they will try it within days because the frustration that sent them is still live. The person who was allocated a seat has no such destination. They may find the day interesting, may even rate it highly, and will return to work with nothing in particular waiting for the new material. Interest without an application decays quickly, and there is nothing dishonourable about that. It is what happens to information nobody needs yet.

The practical implication is uncomfortable for anyone filling a cohort. Attendance driven by availability rather than need produces predictable non-transfer, and it does so regardless of how good the session is. Where there is any latitude, a smaller group of people who chose to be there will change more practice than a full room assembled to hit a number. Where there is no latitude, the honest move is to spend part of the session helping conscripts find a real problem of their own to attach the content to, rather than assuming the content will find one for them.