If your workshop ends with claps and photos but no one does anything differently afterward, you didn’t train—you performed—and the cost is wasted time, budget, and trust. In this article, Jef Menguin shares the rhythm he uses in every session—Mirror → Shift → Win → Act—to move people from insight to real action while they’re still together. Practice it and pass it to your facilitators so your sessions produce momentum that survives Monday.
A few years ago, I wrote an article about how I run workshops—fast-paced, inexpensive, result-oriented, engaging. I called it “F.I.R.E.” and it helped people understand what to expect from me. It was simple, clear, and honest—for that season.
But as I did more work, I noticed something uncomfortable: many workshops can feel “good” and still do nothing. People clap, smile, take photos of slides, and fill feedback forms. Then they return to work and continue the same habits, the same meetings, the same excuses—just with new vocabulary.
That’s the moment I stopped asking, “How do I make workshops engaging?” and started asking a different question: “How do I design a workshop so something actually changes—right there, in the room?” That question became the foundation of Create Shifts.
The room that taught me the real problem
Let me tell you about “Mika.”
Mika is an HR manager. Smart, hardworking, and deeply sincere. She cares about her people, but she also carries the pressure of being the one who must “fix” things. When her leaders complain—“lack of initiative,” “poor accountability,” “weak teamwork”—Mika does what most HR leaders do. She books a training.
She searches for a topic that sounds right. She finds a speaker. She requests a deck. She wants a program that feels safe, professional, and worth the budget. On training day, the room is full. People participate. They laugh at the jokes. They do the activities. The speaker is good.
A week later, Mika walks past the same team and hears the same complaints again.
No malice. No laziness. Just reality.
That’s when it hits her: the workshop was an event. Not a turning point.
I’ve seen this pattern too many times to blame Mika or the participants. The problem is deeper. Many sessions are designed to deliver content, not to shift behavior. And when the design is wrong, even a great facilitator becomes a performer—good on stage, forgettable in life.
The shift I made as a facilitator
I used to think my job was to “teach well.” So I prepared more slides, more models, more frameworks. I measured success by applause, energy, and feedback scores. In a way, I was proud of being able to compress a full-day program into a few hours and still keep people awake.
But I had to admit something: being impressive is not the same as being useful.
That’s why I now design workshops around one principle that sounds harsh but saves everyone time:
If no one does anything differently afterward, it wasn’t training—it was performance.
That line is not meant to judge anyone. It’s a design constraint. It forces me—and the client—to clarify what “change” actually means.
The difference between a workshop that teaches and a workshop that shifts
A teaching workshop often looks complete. It has modules, definitions, concepts, and a flow that feels academically correct. People leave with notes and sometimes even a printed handout that makes the whole thing feel official.
A shift workshop looks a little different. It is less concerned with “coverage” and more obsessed with one thing: what must change in thinking, behavior, or decision-making before people leave the room. It doesn’t rely on volume. It relies on precision.
This is why I don’t begin workshop design with slides. I begin with the shift. In Create Shifts, I describe it as moving from training-as-performance to designing transformation—and it changes everything about how you build the room.
The rhythm I use in every workshop: Mirror → Shift → Win → Act
Over time, I realized my best workshops followed a repeatable rhythm. Not a script, but a sequence that consistently produced movement.
I call that rhythm: Mirror → Shift → Win → Act.
Let me unpack this in a practical way—using the same kind of situations my clients face.
Mirror: I start by helping people see what they’ve been avoiding
Many workshops start with warm-up games and polite questions. “What are your expectations?” “How are you feeling today?” “What do you want to learn?” These are safe questions, and people give safe answers.
But safe answers don’t create change. They create performance.
So I start with a Mirror—not to embarrass people, but to help them see clearly. In the book, I say it directly: the first five minutes aren’t for performance; they’re for truth.
Here’s what that looks like in a real room.
I might ask: “What’s one thing you’re tolerating in your team right now?” Or: “What decision have you been postponing?” Those questions are simple, but they force people to slow down. They don’t just answer from their role. They answer from their reality.
And when the room begins to nod—not because the question is clever, but because it’s accurate—that’s when we have a workshop.
Shift: I introduce one new way of seeing, not ten new ideas
After the Mirror, I introduce the Shift: a new frame that breaks the old default thinking. This is where many facilitators panic and start throwing models at the group. They think, “If I give more frameworks, the session will feel more valuable.”
I disagree.
The goal is not to download knowledge into people. The goal is to crack open the belief that keeps them stuck, and then offer a cleaner lens they can actually use. In Create Shifts, I describe this as breaking the frame without breaking dignity, because people don’t change when they feel attacked—they change when they finally see.
One of my favorite moments as a facilitator is when I don’t have to convince anyone. The room convinces itself. You can feel it when it happens: the energy shifts from discussion to recognition. That’s the Shift doing its job.
Win: we make the new behavior visible while we’re still together
This is where most workshops fail—not because they lack energy, but because they stop at insight. People feel inspired, but nothing becomes real.
I design for a Win, which means I create a moment where participants do something differently inside the room. It can be small, but it must be visible.
For example, in a decision-making session, I might ask teams to pick one delayed decision they’ve been avoiding and make it within five minutes. They don’t need a perfect answer. They just need to experience movement. That moment becomes proof: “We can do this.”
That’s why I repeat this idea to clients and facilitators: insight without action is decoration.
A workshop should not end with “I learned something.” It should include “I did something.”
Act: I design follow-through like it’s part of the workshop
A workshop doesn’t fail because people are lazy. Most people are just overloaded. They return to work, the inbox hits, the boss calls, and the urgent takes over again.
So I don’t treat follow-through as a motivational speech at the end. I treat it as design. The Act is where we make the next step so clear and so doable that it can survive Monday.
Sometimes that means a 48-hour action. Sometimes it means a simple script they can use in a conversation they’ve been avoiding. Sometimes it means a checkpoint ritual, like “Before Friday, test this once and report what happened.” The point is not to create big plans. The point is to create a small continuation that keeps the shift alive.
When the Act is designed well, the workshop doesn’t feel like an isolated event. It feels like the start of a new pattern.
Why I still use pre-work (and why it matters more than people think)
In my original post, I mentioned pre-work and suggested reading a book or article beforehand. I still do this, but not because I want participants to arrive “informed.”
I use pre-work because it creates shared language and saves the live session for what matters: confronting real situations, naming real behaviors, and designing real action. It helps us spend less time on definitions and more time on movement.
Pre-work is not homework. It’s set-up. It gives us a running start.
What “F.I.R.E.” means to me now
If you read my old article, you’ll recognize the same outcomes. The workshop will still feel fast-paced, focused, engaging. But today, those words mean something more specific.
Fast-paced means we remove filler and go straight to the tension people live with every day. Engaging means we don’t rely on entertainment; we create emotional relevance and honest reflection. Result-oriented means we don’t measure success by happy sheets; we measure it by visible action and behavior change.
Same “F.I.R.E.” vocabulary.
A different engine underneath.
If you want to design workshops like this, start here
If you’re a facilitator, trainer, HR leader, or consultant, here’s the question I want you to sit with before you build your next session:
What must be different before they leave the room?
Not “What will they learn?” Not “What slides will I cover?” Not “What activities will we run?”
What must change—visibly—so that the session becomes a turning point, not just a good day.
If you want the full method, that’s what Create Shifts is for. It’s a field guide for designing workshops that move people emotionally and behaviorally—without needing a full-day program to make progress.
And if you’re only going to do one thing in the next 24 hours, do this:
Take the workshop you’re planning. Remove half the content. Then redesign the remaining half so it produces one clear Win inside the room.
That’s where real workshops begin.
