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.
Episodes
360 episodes
UPDATE: The Workshops Work Podcast Has Its Own Feed Again
Sometimes the best decisions only reveal themselves after we’ve made them.Six months ago, I merged my new podcast, Unprofessionalism, with the existing Workshops Work feed. It felt like the right move at the time. But the...
355 - The Final Episode of Workshops Work with Myriam Hadnes
And that’s a wrap, folks! After 355 brilliant, beautiful, mind-opening conversations about facilitation, life, and everything in between, I can now confidently say that I have found the magic ingredients that make workshops work.Join me,...
353 - How to Facilitate Constructive Discomfort through Brave Spaces with Dr. Dauv Evans
Brave work is messy work. It’s an invitation into the dōjō – to be humbled, to get vulnerable, and leave behind what you thought you knew.Life-long learner, executive coach, culture consultant and facilitator, Dr. Dauv Evans joins me thi...
352 - Less Thinking, More Sensing: Embodiment in Facilitation with Mirjam Leunissen
Take a moment to tune into your body. Do your muscles feel tense, is your heartbeat slow and steady, is your jaw clamped tight?Embodiment coach and one-week-old facilitator, my fiancée Mirjam Leunissen joins me this week for a podcast fi...
351 - The Fierce Compassion of Facilitation with Shireen Naqvi
From a childhood imaginary classroom, to the moments before a traffic light turns green, Shireen Naqvi has been viewing the world as a beautiful facilitation opportunity her whole life.Guided by the divine belief that humans are the best...
350 - Workshops Without Words: Learning from the Clown with Suzanne Dietz
Not all clowns hide sadness behind a painted smile. Some wear their emotions on their sleeve, with earnest, overt authenticity, and deep self-awareness!After taking a sign language course, Suzanne Dietz discovered how freeing it was to e...
349 - Facilitation in Japan: Silence, Safety, and Subtlety with Yuko Gendo
Silence is a virtue, and nowhere is this more deeply understood than in Japan. A pause rich with meaning, where thoughts are carefully explored, emotions are quiet, and things are said, without any words at all.So, how do facilitators ho...
348 - Reclaiming Indigenous Wisdom in Facilitation with Katerina Kupenga
Carrying the wisdom of five generations before her, Katerina Kupenga inherited a special legacy from her ancestral namesake: the gift of Māori facilitation.And as a proud wahine Māori from Ngāti Porou, Katerina joins me to share this ric...
347 - When 100 People Feel Like One Team: Crafting Connection Online with Perle Laouenan-Catchpole
Gathering hundreds of people is most facilitators’ worst nightmare – but for Perle Laouenan-Catchpole, it’s her dream.With her signature feminine energy and warmth, Perle connects large online groups as one, cohesive team, creating a sen...
346 - Power, Confidence and the Courage to Speak Up with Matthew Hill
Do you dare to be powerful and confident? Matthew Hill, leadership trainer, conflict mediator, and intercultural facilitator has spent years guiding executives into their inner strength – but his approach might just surprise you.He invit...
345 - From Borders to Bridges: A Chaplain’s Journey with Deb Hansen
Reverend Deb Hansen received a metaphorical message in a bottle, urging her to go to the US-Mexico border – a life calling that she followed all the way to El Paso.As a facilitator-chaplain and quilter of the human experience, Deb has be...
344 - From Fear to Calm: Facilitating in an Age of Overload with Mike Parker
Does an empty cup have nothing in it? Possibilitarian Mike Parker, believes not in its nothingness, but in its potential. Because when we pour our thoughts, feelings, assumptions and beliefs out of the cup, setting everything free, we create a ...
343 - The Paradox of Professional Facilitation with Vinay Kumar
If a facilitator goes unseen, are they any less present? This is the beautiful paradox of facilitation: as we grow more adept in our craft, our presence in the room becomes less noticeable – less needed – because we’ve subtly set th...
342 - Trust, Values and Change: A Facilitator’s Dialogue with AI with Holger Nauheimer
Can an AI bot really become a co-facilitator? Returning to the show with a new book co-authored by artificial intelligence and an AI sidekick named Nyx, is Holgar Nauheimer.After 30 years building a facilitation legacy, Holgar shares a g...
341 - Driving Sustainable Change through Motivational Interviewing with Jeff Wetherhold
As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And master of change Jeff Wetherhold is no stranger to this.He helps teams and leaders to create long-lasting, sustainable change not by plans, great in...
340 - From Archetypes to Authenticity in Leadership with Sarah Budd
Are we all just cosplaying as leaders? Donning a mask or a costume that helps us better play the role we think we should be playing?Helping leaders to show up with truth in a world that never stays still, is leadership psycholog...
339 - 1-Page Plans and the Discipline to Stay the Course with David Greer
Fuzzy goals, misaligned cultural values, and the allure of shiny object syndrome holds even the best entrepreneurs back. So what’s the secret to success?David Greer’s strategic one-page plans! Coach and facilitator of strategic planning,...
338 - Trust, Nerves and Group Dynamics at 2,000 Feet with Josie White
Bringing her childhood dream to life is Josie White, the hot air balloon pilot. From an early obsession with their magical, multi-coloured domes, to a fully-fledged pilot, Josie now flies and facilitates passengers 2000 feet up in the air over ...
337 - From Webinar to Workshop: Rethink Corporate Training with Myriam Hadnes
Corporate training, we all know the drill. The tonedeaf PowerPoint karaoke begins in the background, regurgitating slide content word for word, as you absentmindedly reply to an email…your mind still lingering in your last meeting. ...
336 - Facilitating from the Middle: Holding Space Without Taking Over with Julia Slay
How do you teach facilitators to hold a group, master that crucial first 15-minutes of a workshop, and show them that they already have all the answers, without giving any away?As a researcher by nature, and a facilitator – at first by a...
335 - Beyond Competence: Facilitating Uncertain Spaces with Rebecca Hopkins
How can you know yourself more? What would you tell your younger self? And what are you going to do with this life?Born with a microphone in her hand, and asking all of life’s big, juicy questions, leadership facilitator & coach Rebe...
334 - Before You Call the Lawyer: Reimagining Conflict with Ursula Taylor
Friday night card game clash, or shareholder dispute – at its core, all conflict is the same.Ursula Taylor has seen time and time again, from the court room, to the board room, that every conflict is created and perpetuated from unproces...
333 - Facilitating with Fabric, Feeling, and Freedom with Paula Short
A Mary Poppins’ bag of glitter, a big beating drum, a lump of clay, and a shiny gold crown. Bringing her wonderful, precious collection of props to the show, is the brilliant Paula Short.As a personal development psychotherapist, talente...
332 - From Corporate Slides to Human Connection with Emanuele Mazzanti
We are human beings, not human doings! So how did we find ourselves doing more, more, more, when all we’ve ever needed exists here within us?Emanuele Mazzanti is here to remind us of this. As a facilitator alchemist for EY and a...
331 - Performing to Teach: The Power of Wonder and Magic with Dr Ben Levy
Bitten by the magic bug at a bar mitzvah when he was 12-years old, and led on a lifelong journey from teacher, to coach, to psychologist and magician, is Dr Ben Levy. Now the founder of Magic Lessons, he’s on a mission to make learning feel exa...
