What Do You Do When Participants Are Resistant?

I used to think resistance was something I needed to overcome.

If someone crossed their arms, challenged what I was saying, refused to participate, or told me, “This will never work here,” I felt an immediate pull to respond. I wanted to explain more clearly, defend the idea, convince them, or somehow get the session back on track.

I know now that this impulse usually made things worse.

When someone resists, the most useful first question isn’t “How do I get them to change?” It’s “What is this resistance telling me?”

That question opens up possibilities. The person might disagree with you. They might be afraid of what a change will require of them. They might feel that their expertise is being dismissed or that a decision has already been made without them. They might be responding to five previous professional learning experiences that had nothing to do with you. Or they might be raising a legitimate problem with what you’re asking them to do.

You don’t know yet.

And that’s the point.

Resistance Is Information

One of the biggest shifts I’ve made in how I think about resistance is to stop treating the behavior I can see as the whole story.

Someone argues. Someone shuts down. Someone nods through the session and then does nothing afterward. Someone gets defensive or changes the subject.

There is always so much more underneath those behaviors. There may be fear, anger, sadness, or shame. A core human need may feel threatened. There may be beliefs, history, organizational context, or experiences with power that you don’t yet understand.

This doesn’t mean that if someone pushes back on an activity, you need to quickly diagnose that her need for autonomy is threatened. You can simply become less certain about the story you were about to tell yourself and more curious about what else might be happening.

That is incredibly important because the story you tell yourself will shape how you respond.

If I decide he’s trying to derail me, I’ll probably become defensive or controlling. But if I wonder, what might he be trying to tell me? I have more options.

Start With What’s Happening in You

When resistance happens in front of a group, it can feel incredibly personal.

Someone challenges your premise, and it feels like they’re questioning your competence. The room goes quiet, and you assume you’ve lost them. Someone says, “We’ve tried this before,” and suddenly you’re explaining all the reasons this time will be different.

Before you decide what to do with their resistance, notice what it’s doing to you.

Maybe your chest tightens. You start talking faster. You over-explain. You abandon what you had planned. You feel an urge to prove that you’re right or regain control of the room.

If you don’t recognize that you’ve become defensive, you’re much more likely to respond defensively.

Sometimes six seconds is enough to change what happens next. Pause. Notice your reaction. Question your first interpretation of what’s happening. Then decide how you want to respond.

Get Curious About What’s Underneath

Once you’ve slowed your own reaction, you can get curious about the resistance itself.

Sometimes that means asking the participant directly:

“Can you say a little more about what’s concerning you?”

Or:

“It sounds like you’ve had some experience with this before. What happened?”

Or:

“What about this feels difficult to imagine working in your context?”

You’re asking because you need more information. And sometimes what you learn should change what you do.

Perhaps the participant identifies a constraint you hadn’t considered. Maybe several people share the same concern. Maybe your directions weren’t as clear as you thought. Maybe people don’t understand why they’re being asked to learn this. Maybe the session assumes a level of knowledge or experience they don’t have.

Resistance can tell you something about the learning environment you’ve created.

Remember That Silence Can Be Resistance. Or Not.

Resistance doesn’t always look like someone arguing with you.

It can look like silence, disengagement, compliance, sarcasm, avoidance, or people simply not doing what you’ve asked.

But be careful about interpreting those behaviors too quickly.

Silence might mean disagreement. It might also mean that someone is thinking, confused, tired, uncertain, afraid to speak, or simply needs more time. A participant challenging you might be resistant, or they might be offering a legitimate critique.

Instead of immediately labeling what you see, separate the observation from your interpretation.

No one responded to my question is an observation.

They don’t care about this is a story.

That distinction gives you room to investigate before you react.

When the Whole Group Is Resistant

Sometimes it’s not just a participant or two that are resistant, it’s the whole group.

When that happens, continuing with your agenda and hoping the energy changes usually isn’t your best option.

Name what you’re noticing without pretending you know why it’s happening.

You might say:

“I’m noticing that there seems to be some hesitation about this. Before we keep going, I’d like to understand what’s coming up for you.”

Then listen.

You may discover that participants don’t see the relevance of the learning. They may be exhausted by another organizational initiative. They may have been required to attend and resent the loss of choice. They may know something about their context that you don’t.

You don’t have to solve every concern that emerges. But once you know what people are responding to, you can make a more informed decision about what the group needs next.

When Someone Says, “This Won’t Work Here”

This is one of those comments that can immediately activate a facilitator.

Your impulse might be to explain why it will work.

Resist that urge and get curious instead.

Ask, “What makes you say that?”

Maybe they’ve tried something similar, and it failed. Maybe there’s an organizational constraint you don’t know about. Maybe they’re afraid of trying something new and failing. Maybe they fundamentally disagree with the premise.

You can respond much more effectively to the actual concern than to the sentence This won’t work here.

And if their concern is valid, acknowledge it.

When a Participant Doesn’t Want to Participate

Adults need agency in their learning. And yet many professional learning experiences are mandatory, which means participants may arrive having already lost one significant source of choice.

If someone doesn’t want to participate in an activity, I won’t force them to comply.

I might clarify why I’m asking them to do it. I might offer another way to engage. I might let them observe for a round and decide whether they want to join later.

What I don’t want to do is turn the activity into a power struggle.

The goal of professional development is learning, not obedience.

When You Need to Hold a Boundary

Getting curious about resistance doesn’t mean every behavior is acceptable.

A participant can disagree with you. They can question the premise of the learning. They can tell you they don’t want to participate.

They cannot be allowed to harm other people.

When resistance happens publicly, you have power as the facilitator. How you use it can protect someone’s dignity or threaten it. You can set a boundary without humiliating someone, disagree while remaining curious, and interrupt harm without trying to win the exchange.

That might mean saying:

“I want to make room for disagreement, and I also want to be clear that we’re not going to talk about people in that way.”

Curiosity and boundaries are not opposites. Strong facilitation requires both.

Facilitation Isn’t the Same as Coaching Resistance

This distinction is especially important for those of us who are both coaches and facilitators.

In coaching, I may have the time and relationship to explore someone’s resistance deeply. We can investigate emotions, beliefs, needs, identity, experiences with power, and what the resistance might be protecting. That exploration can unfold over multiple conversations.

I usually can’t—and shouldn’t—do that with one participant in the middle of a workshop.

When I’m facilitating, I’m responsible for the learning of the whole group. I can notice resistance, get curious, make an adjustment, offer choice, clarify purpose, or respond to what has been said. Sometimes the right next step is to follow up privately rather than turning one participant’s resistance into the focus of everyone else’s learning.

The skills overlap, but the roles are different.

Facilitation asks, “What does this group need right now for learning to continue?”

Coaching can ask, “What might this person need to understand and work through their resistance?”

Three Moves for Responding to Resistance

In How to Coach Resistance, I offer three moves for moments when resistance shows up in a facilitated experience: Notice What’s Happening in You. Get Curious About What’s Underneath. Respond Out Loud.

The third move is often the one we want first: Just tell me what to say.

But what you say will be much more useful if you’ve done the first two.

There isn’t a magic sentence that works for every resistant participant because resistance doesn’t have a single cause. Your response needs to emerge from what you’re actually seeing and learning in that moment.

Over time, the question becomes less, what do I do when someone resists? And more, can I stay grounded and curious long enough to understand what’s happening—and then respond intentionally?

That’s the skill I want facilitators to practice.

Key Takeaways

Resistance is information. What you see—the crossed arms, challenge, silence, disengagement, or refusal—is behavior, not a complete explanation for what’s happening underneath it.

Before responding, notice your own reaction. Then get curious about what the participant or group may be communicating. Their resistance might point to fear, a threatened need, a legitimate disagreement, a problem with the learning design, an experience with power, or something you haven’t understood yet.

Curiosity doesn’t mean tolerating harm or abandoning the purpose of the learning. You can listen, adapt, disagree, and hold boundaries while protecting participants’ dignity.

And remember which role you’re in. Facilitators are responsible for the learning conditions of the whole group. Some resistance can be addressed in the room; some deserve a deeper coaching conversation later.

Questions I Hear Most Often

Why are participants resistant during professional development?

There isn’t one cause of resistance. A participant may disagree with the content, fear what a change will require, feel that a core human need is threatened, resent being required to attend, have previous negative experiences with professional learning, or see a legitimate problem with what’s being proposed. The behavior you see is a starting point for curiosity, not a diagnosis.

Should I address resistance publicly?

It depends on what is happening and how it is affecting the group. If resistance is disrupting learning, is shared by much of the group, or involves harm, you may need to address it publicly. Other situations are better handled through a private follow-up. Your responsibility is to consider what will best support the learning and dignity of the whole group.

What if a participant is openly challenging me?

Notice your own reaction before you respond. Then determine whether the person is raising a legitimate question, expressing a concern, or engaging in behavior that requires a boundary. A challenge does not automatically mean hostility, and becoming defensive can turn a useful disagreement into a power struggle.

How do I stop taking resistance personally?

Start by separating what happened from the story you’re telling yourself about it. A participant’s response may be about you or the session, but it may also reflect prior experiences, fear, organizational context, disagreement, or something else entirely. You won’t know until you get curious.

What’s the difference between coaching resistance and facilitating resistance?

Coaching gives you the opportunity to explore an individual’s resistance more deeply over time. In facilitation, you are simultaneously responsible for the learning of the whole group. You can get curious and respond to resistance, but you may decide that deeper exploration belongs in a separate conversation rather than in the middle of the workshop.

Keep Learning

In How to Coach Resistance, I go much deeper into what sits underneath resistance—including emotions, core human needs, our own triggers and reactions, relationships, power, and the conditions that make change and learning possible.

Continue Reading

• How Do You Handle Difficult Participants During a Workshop?
• How Do Adult Learning Principles Influence Workshop Design?
• What Makes Effective Facilitator Training?
• How to Facilitate Adult Learning That Leads to Lasting Change

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• Coaching Resistance: Learn how to understand what’s underneath resistance and respond in ways that create possibilities for learning and change.
• PD That Changes Practice: Build the skills to design and facilitate professional learning—including how to respond when what happens in the room isn’t what you planned.
• The Facilitation Studio: Pursue excellence in facilitation through a comprehensive, year-long pathway that combines foundational training, ongoing Skill Sessions, live Intensives, monthly practice, and optional certification.

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