4 Reasons Why Workshops Fail

Amidst the growing popularity of “technology-based” and “social-learning” types of training and development methods, the question bears asking: Do workshops or facilitator-based sessions still constitute a value-added method for developing talents, leadership and teams within organizations? In my experience, this training and development method remains quite popular. Unfortunately, experience has also repeatedly highlighted an unfortunate reality: Workshops sometimes fall short of having any meaningful impact on participants by helping them change performance-related behaviours.

There are many possible reasons why workshops often fail to deliver significant behaviour changes in participants. Drawing on observations from my practice as a consultant and facilitator, I propose to illustrate four fairly common organizational obstacles which significantly undermine the effectiveness of this and potentially other people-development methods.