What if you’re not the expert?
It happens to almost every trainer at some point.
You’re preparing for a session.
You know the content.
Then introductions start.
“15 years in the industry.”
“20 years.”
“12 years doing this work.”
And suddenly a thought creeps in:
What am I doing here?
I remember facilitating an underwriting training for new hires who had underwriting experience before joining the company. My job was to teach them our tools and approach.
I had about two weeks to prepare.
When the first session started and people shared their experience, the math hit me quickly:
Many of them knew far more about underwriting than I did.
For a moment, the pressure kicked in.
Should I be lecturing more?
Should I prove I know what I’m talking about?
But then a more useful realization showed up.
Trying to prove I was the expert wasn’t going to help anyone learn.
The Aha: The Facilitator’s Job Isn’t Expertise
Earlier in my career, I had a similar moment.
Fresh out of college, I started facilitating leadership and human relations programs in Mexico for business executives—from frontline leaders to the C-suite.
Different country.
Different language.
Participants much older and far more experienced than me.
If impostor syndrome had a perfect setup, that was it.
At first, I thought credibility meant having the answers.
But over time, something became clear.
Participants weren’t there to hear me talk.
They were there to practice, reflect, and test ideas in a safe environment.
The facilitator’s role isn’t to be the smartest person in the room.
It’s to design the conditions where the smartest thinking in the room can surface.
And in most training environments, the room already contains a huge amount of expertise.
When facilitators feel pressure to prove themselves, they often default to lecture.
Ironically, that’s the fastest way to lose the room—especially in long virtual sessions where cameras are off and distractions are everywhere.
The real shift happens when you stop asking:
How do I prove I belong here?
…and start asking:
How do I design this session so the room does the learning?
The Tool: Flip the Expertise
In that underwriting training, I realized quickly that memorizing everything and lecturing it back wasn’t the answer.
So I flipped the structure.
Instead of positioning myself as the expert, I designed the session to activate the expertise already in the room.
1. Start with their experience
Rather than explaining every concept, I asked participants to surface the fundamentals.
Questions like:
- “From your experience, what are the biggest factors you consider when underwriting a case?”
- “What mistakes do new underwriters often make?”
This did two things immediately:
- It activated prior knowledge
- It revealed where our company’s approach aligned—or differed
Then I layered in the specific tools and process they needed to learn.
2. Put the tools in their hands quickly
Instead of walking through tools step-by-step, participants used them right away.
They reviewed cases.
Compared decisions.
Discussed trade-offs.
Rather than listening to explanations, they were interacting with the actual work.
Engagement went up instantly—even in a full-day virtual session.
3. Facilitate the thinking
My role shifted from explaining to guiding.
Instead of answering every question, I asked:
- “How would others approach this?”
- “What would this look like in your environment?”
- “Where might this process break down?”
The room became the engine of learning.
And something interesting happened.
The more experienced participants accelerated the learning for everyone else.
Including me.
When Expertise Isn’t the Point
Facilitation and expertise are not the same thing.
Content expertise can help—but it’s not what makes training work.
What makes training work is:
- structuring the conversation
- designing the practice
- creating the environment where people can test ideas safely
In other words:
The facilitator’s job is to make learning easier, not to prove they know the most.
Design for Participation, Not Proof
The next time you walk into a training room and realize participants might know more about the topic than you do, try a different move.
Don’t double down on explaining.
Instead ask:
- How can I surface the expertise already here?
- How can participants interact with the tools and ideas themselves?
- How can the room do more of the thinking?
When you shift the role from expert to learning architect, something interesting happens.
The pressure disappears.
Participation increases.
And the learning gets stronger.
Want to help your trainers move beyond trying to prove expertise and start designing sessions where the room does the learning?
Explore Letskillup’s Train the Trainer programs—built to help facilitators create learning experiences where expertise in the room becomes an asset, participation is intentional, and learning comes from interaction—not just instruction. 🚀
The Trainer’s Blog 
Leave a comment