The Trainer Who Doesn’t Give Answers

Can a trainer conduct a full-day program without giving participants answers? Absolutely. In fact, sometimes that is exactly what a good trainer should do. We recently worked on a sales intervention where the facilitator deliberately resisted the temptation to provide solutions. Instead, the participants were asked questions. They were given situations. They had to debate. They had to make choices. They had to defend those choices. And eventually, they had to build their own playbook.

Why? Because people rarely implement what they have merely heard. They implement what they have understood, tested and owned. There is a certain comfort in being the trainer who knows everything. Participants ask. Trainer answers. Everyone is happy. But what happens after the trainer leaves? The answer stays in the training room. A facilitative approach works differently. The trainer creates the context. The participants bring their experience. The group brings its wisdom.

The facilitator connects the dots. And the final solution becomes something the group has co-created. This is also why facilitation requires a certain amount of restraint. You need to be comfortable with silence. Comfortable with ambiguity. Comfortable with participants arriving at an answer you hadn’t planned. And comfortable saying: “I don’t know. What do you think?” That is not lack of expertise. Sometimes… That is the expertise.