workshops work Podcast
This is a podcast about facilitation: the practice of creating conditions for people to think better together.
Whether you’re leading strategy, navigating change or developing leaders, the quality of your conversations shapes the quality of your decisions.
Hosted by Dr Myriam Hadnes, behavioural economist, facilitator and founder of workshops.work, each episode explores the human dynamics of working together: how psychological safety is built, why some conversations lead to action while others stall, how leaders foster genuine participation, and what behavioural science can teach us about collaboration. Alongside these conversations, Dr Hadnes shares reflections from her own client work, offering practical insights from the realities of designing and facilitating workshops in organisations.
Recognised as the facilitation community’s most-recommended podcast in SessionLab’s State of Facilitation reports from 2024 to 2026, the show has grown into an archive of more than 350 conversations spanning the craft, the inner work, and the unexpected edges of facilitation. Whether you’re a facilitator, leader, consultant or L&D professional, you'll come away with sharper questions and a few ideas worth borrowing.
workshops work Podcast
123 - The Inner Work of Facilitation - with Quanita Roberson
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It took me nearly one year to arrange this interview, due to just how popular, committed, and focused Quanita Roberson is.
But I would have happily waited a decade for the value, kindness, and wonder she imparts in conversation. Quanita is the founder of Nzuzu Consulting and focuses on the deep, fun, and easy flow of energy to address embedded trauma.
Her insights into the human condition, our experiences, and the role we play as facilitators are genuinely groundbreaking.
We talk about grief, faith, community, privilege, slowing down, divine order, and lots of things that aren’t technically to do with facilitation but, really, are fundamental to our work.
This is a special episode and one I hope will stay with you for a long time.
Find out about:
● Getting out of our own way so we can get out of our participants’ way
● Why we need to ‘clear the decks’ in the room before we begin a session
● How we can see fear as in invitation, not a warning
● Why grief underlies a lot of the ‘bad’ things we feel (e.g. shame or guilt)
● Learning to grieve – alone and together – and how we can facilitate this
● Understanding ourselves and our communities as part of nature and the divine
● Why, in the Information Age, embodiment is more important than ever
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And if the idea of NeverDoneBefore 2021, the community of facilitators, caught your attention; click here to explore it in more detail!
Questions and Answers
[01:28] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?
[03:47] What makes someone a facilitator and what makes someone a trainer?
[04:47] How can one be present and absent at the same time?
[06:13] Do you and Tenneson Woolf have a routine for ‘clearing the decks’ when you work together?
[09:39] What has your journey of inner work looked like?
[13:25] How do you translate and transfer the lessons from your own inner journey into a group setting, to help the participants in their own journey?
[15:59] What is the role of the group when you are guiding them through their journeys?
[18:55] To help a group through feelings of shame or guilt, then, do we first need to help them realise they’re actually dealing with grief?
[22:20] How do you open the space to discuss grief in a ‘professional’ environment?
[23:49] How can we learn to grieve?
[26:54] How do you think the pandemic affected us and our relationship with grief?
[35:00] What does it take to create a community for grieving in a professional space?
[41:22] What does the Circle practice mean for you and for groups?
[44:43] How do you catch yourself focusing on the methodology rather than the experience?
[47:11] Can we grow into embodiment?
[50:50] If somebody wanted to begin a journey towards the perspectives you’ve shared, how would you advise they start?
[52:15] What keeps you grounded and aware in times of crisis?
[55:11] Was there anything you wanted to discuss that we haven’t spoken about yet?
[57:45] What is the one thing you would like listeners to take away from this conversation?
Links
Nzuzu Consulting, Quanita’s website
Fire and Water Leadership, Quanita’s Rite of Passage course
https://www.facebook.com/groups/527006851373739
Any thoughts? Share them with us!
👉 Are you looking for the Unprofessionalism podcast? https://unprofessionalism.buzzsprout.com/ 👈