Most people think low engagement is the problem with their workshop. It’s not.

Most people think low engagement is the problem with their workshop.
It's not.

But it does hint at the deeper issues most facilitators never consider.

Regardless of whether it’s online or in person, workshop hosts spend a loooot of energy trying to fix low engagement in their events:

The awkward silence when you ask for a volunteer…
and everyone suddenly finds something fascinating to look at on the floor

The mysterious black rectangles. Are they even there?
Or are you just background noise while they crochet or chop veggies?

The cheerful “Thanks, that was great!” as they quickly run out the door
which sounds suspiciously like “I’m still a bit lost… but you seem nice, and I’m not gonna say anything”.

These are visible symptoms of potential problems with a session. But…

The real issue is something that took root long before the workshop even started.

Wanna know what I mean?

Most of the clients that come to me when they’re worried about low engagement are radically-minded entrepreneurs who are all about liberation in their daily lives and work. And they feel a bit uncomfortable with hierarchical workshop formats where they’re meant to spend an hour straight in the spotlight, doing the vast majority of the talking.

That conventional style they’re using is largely responsible for the low engagement they’re concerned about.

Beyond “engagement”, what they’re really looking for is facilitation and design methods that reflect their values, and the depth of their vision for humanity. Something more community-focused, anti-authoritarian, and fun.

If you want to find out more about that, keep reading. I gotchu.

We’ll start our exploration at the surface and work our way down.

(Psst: There’s a pink, heart-shaped chat widget thingy floating on the page.
If you wanna share your thoughts with me at any point, or ask questions,
that’s a direct line to me. I’ll get a text with your message!)

When you address the problem at the core, it radiates out to improve the situation on the surface.

Let’s look at the Disengagement Layers.

There are five key layers, each digging deeper into why traditional workshops fall flat. Once we understand what’s at the core, I’ll talk about what we can do instead.

disengagement layer 1:

Low engagement

Focusing your efforts here might actually make things worse.

Most workshop hosts know before they even start their presentation that it’ll be an uphill battle to keep people engaged. There are so many things competing for people’s attention these days.

If you can actually get someone to attend something live (and not just sign up to get a “replay” they can watch at 2x on their own time) that’s only the first step. How do you keep them paying attention for the duration?

And so, you see many “expert” webinar-givers teaching folks like us to actively discourage multitasking. They tell their attendees:

"Close your tabs!
Put your phone away!
Be present."

(Sound familiar? )

They’ll also sometimes add in elements to encourage paying attention… and to coerce participation, for their own benefit.

Things like:

One-click polls and quizzes
🫣 → *coughmarketresearch*

Asking for a definition
🫣 → before providing the “correct” one

Having people briefly introduce themselves
🫣 → never to be heard from again!

Commanding them to “Put [word] in the chat!”
🫣 → because …reasons?

Giving out prizes for favourite comments
🫣 → Ah. Good, old fashioned bribery.

We can do so much better. These things are like putting a dirty bandaid on someone who needs surgery. Not only are these “solutions” not solving the problem – they’re likely gonna make things worse.

Even if people do respond at first, they’ll soon realize it doesn’t make a difference. Their input changes nothing. That evaporates motivation.

What do you think happens when they realize that? 🧐

And ALSO (!!) …before adding all these gimmicks, did anyone stop to consider why engagement in these lecture-based presentations is so low in the first place?

(Oh, hi, that’s me. I did. 😜 …keep reading!)

disengagement layer 2:

Consumption mode

When workshops feel kinda like Netflix?

People’s brains naturally want to conserve energy, and when “workshops” are actually lectures, participants can sit back and listen. They’re essentially watching a movie:

You talk, they listen.

Their brains go: “Sweet, I can coast! They’re doing all the heavy lifting.”

Imagine you’re watching Hidden Figures and halfway through, the movie stops. The lights flash on. A paper and pen are thrust at you, and you’re asked to solve one of the equations. Bruh.

Even if it’s a question you could normally solve, the abrupt switch from ‘watching’ to ‘answering’ would catch you off guard, wouldn’t it?

The same thing happens when we force sudden interaction in the middle of a lecture.

Brain goes:
😳
“Uhhhh?! I dunno… I was chilling!”

Okayyy… so, why do we do it?

disengagement layer 3:

Expert Dynamics

The hierarchy hiding in your good intentions.

We lecture people into Passive Consumption Mode because… that’s what experts do, isn’t it?

We think our role as workshop host is to deliver expertise: share years of insights, anecdotes of our experience, and hard-earned wisdom.

They’re meant to listen closely and receive the knowledge we bestow upon them. And we’re eager to share what we know! But the more we talk, the more we reinforce a one-way flow of information: from us, the expert, “down” to them, the passive listener.

And we tilt the balance of power into a well-meaning… hierarchy. Whoops!

Paulo Friere explains the problem with expert dynamics so well in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

“Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.”

Please don’t get it twisted: I think having subject-matter knowledge is a beautiful thing. My issue is with the dynamic where one person (or a small group) is meant to supply the answers, and everyone else’s role is to sit there quietly and absorb what they say.

Even if you swear a lot, or share memes… if your workshop, overall, operates just like a university lecture with a professor at the front of a class?

Then the dynamic naturally tips more toward obedience than engagement. ⚖️

(See how this goes so much deeper than it seems?)

disengagement layer 4:

Internal Pressure

“If I share less content… Won’t people get less value?”

You might be wondering how someone who doesn’t love hierarchies ends up perpetuating this form of power imbalance.

Great question.
(Asking for a friend?)

I think it comes from internalizing the norms we’re surrounded by, and feeling like we need to behave a certain way, in order to “belong”. Or even to feel good about ourselves..

Our intentions are noble. We want to:

give generously,
share helpful information, and
be respectful of people’s time.

(And yeah, deep down there might also be a part of us that wants to prove how smart we are!)

All this pressure can lead to overloading workshop guests with waaayyy too much information.

There’s not enough time to process big ideas, set a new path in motion by taking serious action, or connect deeply with the like-minded people in the room.

Transformation takes more than facts.

No-one is “forcing” us to do things this way:
We’re in business for ourselves.
We’re running the ship.
We are choosing this for ourselves.

And yes, we can choose to do things differently.

But it might feel really weird and be a challenge to actually do.

Why is that?

disengagement layer 5:

Social programming

We’re (accidentally) recreating existing systems.

This internal pressure didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a product of our social programming.

Systems like patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, etc have taught us our value is tied to how smart or accomplished we appear, how productive we are, and that some people are more valuable than others.

It trained a lot of us to focus on coming across as intelligent.
Diligent. Useful. Efficient. “Better”.

This social conditioning tells us that to be seen as a valuable expert, we need to “prove” that we know more. Usually through long, information-heavy lectures (see above). As a result, we unconsciously reinforce oppressive dynamics even when we have the best intentions.

And because this programming is so deeply internalized, it’s easy to think a lackluster session just needs more “engagement.” But to create a truly transformative experience, we actually need to undo these layers of programming and fix the issue at the root.

(Radical, right?)

Breaking the cycle:

Low engagement is just a surface-level symptom.
We want to heal the issue at the core.

In a minute, I’ll get into my approach to running workshops that’s literally designed to address that core issue, but first let’s back up a bit and look at the big picture.

[Deep breath]

Think about your larger vision.

What are you trying to accomplish with your work?
What’s the purpose of you doing workshops?

Is it so that people will:

Be impressed by you,
Put more messages in the chat, and
Get hyped up (for a fleeting moment)?

I’m guessing not.

I’m guessing that you’re more interested in helping people

Feel empowered to act differently,
Connect deeply with other humans, and
Take another step on a lasting journey of transformation.

My guess is what you *genuinely* want is for
people, communities, and the world
to be positively impacted by your work in a meaningful way.

One way to get what you really, really want is through worldbuilding.

We want to live in a world without hierarchies, yeah? (I’m assuming you hate all the -isms as much as I do… you wouldn’t like it here very much otherwise. Okay great. ‘No’ to hierarchies.)

We want to live in a world that embraces the fullness of our humanity, and not just what we know, but how we feel. One that values community-building, and joy. Rest and spaciousness over urgency.

If those are things you want…
Build your workshop with all that in mind.
(This is what I do with clients. Just sayin’! 😉)

Social programming is based on the way the world has been, up ‘til now.

Worldbuilding is creating the world that we want to have in the future.

It’s nuanced. It’s robust. And hopefully, it’s empowering, and anti-authoritarian.

When I’ve guided clients through the worldbuilding process, they say it helped them:

“translate the experiential moments I wanted to create in a practical way”
“redesign my retreat to be integrity with my vision and values”
“see workshops (and the world) through a new lens”.

So, when we talk about the purpose of a workshop….

it’s not about finding a way to get people typing in the chat intermittently while your throat gets dry and scratchy from talking so much.

It’s about so much more.

In a well-designed workshop, you are creating the conditions for change to happen.

You’re bringing people together, sharing a new vision for how the world can be, creating a space with the

tools resources healing stories support conversations etc.

needed for that vision to become reality, and strengthening communities in the process.

You are making your revolution tangible.

That is the true beauty (and purpose) of a workshop.

Workshops are a form of Worldbuilding.

Need an example?

Okay, so instead of someone starting with a Canva slide deck outlining the agenda (that they set) and their bio (again, about them and what they know), what if a workshop began differently?

If you want to live in a world where everyone is valued and has something worthwhile to contribute, and people tell more stories… what if you started with a fictional narrative where *the guests* are problem-solvers navigating a challenge?

Or if you think capitalism has us too focused on rationality and efficiency at the expense of joy and laughter, what if your workshop centred around a game (followed by a debrief that uncovers tons of hidden insights) that gets them thinking, laughing, sharing, and forgetting the “real world”?

With worldbuilding, people aren’t just sitting there, taking notes… they’re shaping things with you.

The ‘Workshops as Worldbuilding’ framework I use has eight key elements to consider, and they all layer together to create a clear and compelling workshop that showcases your vision for the future, and makes it tangible.

If you’d like to work through this framework with me, we can get together for a Dream Day. A Dream Day is a collaborative 1-on–1 strategy session where we reimagine your workshop from the core together, in a way that mirrors the future you’re trying to build. If you’re curious and think it could be supportive for you, you can read more about it here.

Worldbuilding can transform your workshops into an immersive experience that people step into, instead of a lecture they sit through.

Much more engaging.

When you stop thinking of workshops as something you deliver and start seeing them as worlds you invite people to explore with you, you can completely reimagine your workshop.

However you decide to run your next workshop, I hope it reflects the future you want, not just the systems you’ve inherited.

And if you want a collaborator in the development process, you know where to find me

Start with a
Dream Day

Before you design your workshop, it helps to have a map to the world you’re building. The Dreamworld Codex serves as your personal map.

During your Dream Day, we’ll spend a full day voice-noting back and forth, filling in that map with the Elements of Worldbuilding. I’ll be right there as your co-navigator, helping you bring your vision into focus, uncover hidden pathways, and chart new terrain.

Super casual, super daydream-y, and full of clarity. By the end, you’ll have a world ready to bring to life.

Currently a $400-700 CAD investment.
(equity-based pricing)