Facilitation for Trainers: Make the Group Do the Work

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Adults do not learn from being told. They learn from formulating, arguing, trying and getting it wrong in front of other people.

Knowing the subject is the smaller half

You know the material better than anyone in the room, and the session still goes flat. One person answers every question. Two others have not spoken since the introductions. Somebody was sent by their manager and is not pretending otherwise. After lunch the energy drops and does not come back. And at the end the feedback says "informative", which is the polite word for nothing changed — because you spent the day transmitting content to people who needed to produce it themselves, and no amount of subject expertise fixes that.

What this course covers

Forty lessons on running the room rather than knowing the material. The craft first: Dale's Cone, how effectiveness is judged, problematisation, the optimal group size, what the room should look like and why the breaks matter, programme design, the four-stage cycle of problematising, reflecting, conceptualising and practising, introducing group norms early, warming a group up, the acquaintance and role-distribution stages, facilitation against moderation, handling objections, metaphors, the five rules for sub-groups, how to end, and running it remotely. Then the session where the group produces the content: what facilitation is and the one skill it depends on, formulating a goal a session can actually reach, choosing who is present, holding focus, generating and prioritising, assigning an owner to every outcome, force majeure and difficult participants, alignment and atmosphere, timing, large groups and international ones. Then the thing that separates a facilitator from a lecturer — asking instead of telling: GROW, nine principles, the balance wheel, the one-to-ten scale, active listening, discussing a problem without solving it for someone, clean language, what makes a question powerful rather than merely open, raising the bar without losing the person, and encouragement that removes barriers instead of adding urgency. Then the group itself: stages of development, diagnosing it with a questionnaire before you start, exercises for people who have just met, for groups that do not mix, for remote and hybrid rooms, an exercise matched to each typical problem, and the GRPI model. Then conflict: how it escalates, the resolution algorithm, how the person running the room should react, assessing likelihood with a test, negotiation and mediation. Finally attention: game mechanics that work without a platform, recognition and progress, and moving learning online without losing the group.

Three blocks from a neighbouring audience

The group building, conflict and gamification blocks were recorded for companies rather than for trainers. The material transfers directly: stages of group development behave the same in a learning group as in a working one, a conflict in a training room escalates by the same pattern as anywhere else, and the game mechanics block ends on exactly the question this course asks — how to move learning online without the group falling apart. What a trainer takes from these is a library of ready exercises, a way to diagnose a group before the first slide, and an escalation algorithm for the moment two participants stop being polite.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 40 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working material: Dale's Cone, the training design model, the four-stage cycle, group norms and warm-ups, the sub-group rules, the facilitation preparation stages and closing structure, GROW, the balance wheel, the powerful question framework, the group diagnostic questionnaire, GRPI, the escalation algorithm and the game mechanics

• Built around the difficult participant, not around the ideal one

Where to start

Think of the last session you ran and count how many minutes you spoke. Then count how many the group did. That ratio is what this course changes. Enrol now and start today.