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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Lately I’ve been noticing people who are using the terms training, facilitating, and presenting interchangeably. And for the purposes of a conversation, it might be perfectly acceptable to use the terms in that way. I’ve done it myself. But when it comes to delivery, the terms are different, and the word choice could create audience expectations. For example, here are the definitions:

Training is the action of teaching a person a specific skill or type of behavior.

Facilitation is the act of helping other people to deal with a process or reach an agreement or solution without getting directly involved in the process, discussion, etc.

Presentation is an activity in which someone shows, describes, or explains something to a group of people.

Using these definitions, if I attend a facilitated session, I’d expect the facilitator to let the group drive the conversation. If I attend a training session, I expect activities and skill practices. And, if I attend a presentation, I expect something like a lecture. All three are valuable. That’s not the point. My view is that audiences make the decision to receive information a certain way and when the speaker doesn’t deliver the session in the way that was expected, well…it can be disappointing and possibly, ineffective.

In addition, all three of these delivery methods require pre-work. Training is best when a needs analysis is completed. Facilitation requires gathering information about the situation or issue to be discussed. And presentations should be researched. While it is possible to combine some of these methods, there are limitations. For example, when working on a presentation, it might be tempting to include some training type activities. But in many presentations, the speaker doesn’t have access to an audience analysis, a key piece of information in the training analysis. 

One of the reasons I wanted to discuss these definitions is because I’ve noticed a lot of speakers moving toward this combination of training/presenting and I don’t think it’s as fluid as one might think. I totally understand the concept of entertaining education and that can happen in both training and presentations. What I’m talking about is the “Let’s do an activity!” during a presentation. There are three things to keep in mind:

Activities should be relevant. I understand that many people like interaction so putting an activity in a presentation is well-received. But the activity needs to have a point or takeaway. Now, let me be brutally honest here: I’ve never been part of a three-minute breakout discussion during a conference presentation that yielded an epiphany. Yes, it can be fun, but there’s never enough time allocated to make the conversation effective or relevant. Which leads to point number two …

Activities always seems to take longer than expected. I’ve seen many conference sessions where the speaker asks the group to take 2 minutes to discuss something. Depending upon the size of the group, the two-minute activity becomes five or sometimes ten minutes. Primarily because the speaker has a hard time refocusing the group again. It’s easy to do this type of activity during a presentation with small groups. With large groups, it can get out of control. 

When you lose control of the group, you lose control of your session. I’ve seen speakers do an activity then rush through the rest of their session because their timing is off. So, the audience misses out on valuable information . . . because of an activity . . . that maybe wasn’t relevant in the first place. This can frustrate the audience because they were expecting just a presentation, and didn’t get it.

Organizations keep telling employees they need to learn and stay current with their skills. Which is great! And employees are embracing the message. This means employees are not only going to place emphasis on the information they are learning but the methods that information is being shared. Because they have a learning goal, and the company is holding them accountable for accomplishing that goal. So, speakers need to be cognizant that training is truly interactive, facilitation is objective, and presentations accomplish certain goals.

That doesn’t mean training, facilitations, or presentations should be boring. It means that they need to be relevant and well-managed.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the Kennedy Space Center before a launch
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23/11/2024 – 06:44 /Sharlyn Lauby
Twitter: @hoffeldtcom