2 · Groups, Teams, Leadership, Facilitation, and Training Training and Facilitation There is another important distinction: the difference between training and facilitation. This distinction revolves around the relationship between content and process. Someone who trains, instructs, or teaches has specific content that needs to be presented, practiced, and learned by participants. An effective trainer prepares objectives, exercises, and activities that introduce, then reinforce the content, and tests whaf was learned. The trainer pays attention to the learning process using activities that are carefully selected and paced. A facilitator's role focuses primarily on process. The facilitator must know a lot about the members: their attitudes, commitment, skills, and interpersonal relationships. The facilitator plans the agenda based on their goal and objectives. The facilitator does not need to have thorough content knowledge of the problems the group is discussing. Instead, the facilitator must know decision- making and problem-solving methods. There are occasions when the facilitator will don a trainer's hat in order to educate the group or team members on certain skills. When he/she moves into this role, he/she announces this shift so the team understands and accepts this change. The facilitator must understand group process, how to prepare and monitor agendas, and how to help the group or team achieve its goals. This resource guide is organized to help you be an effective facilitator. A leader usually works with a team of people, so the challenge for any leader is to adapt his/her style to meet the changing needs of several people at the same time. The key to effective leadership, then, is to accurately diagnose the needs of the individuals in the team and to adapt one's leadership to fit those changing needs. 17