Knowing
isn’t doing.

Learning that earns attention—and invites people in.

Effective learning helps people find a reason to choose something different—and begin putting it into practice.

Strengthen your leaders’ effectiveness.
Develop your facilitators’ expertise.
Make learning matter in the work that follows.

The thinking behind the work

THE POINT OF PROVOKE

People can’t use
what they haven’t
made their own.

The organization may have chosen the model. The people learning it still need to decide what to make of it.

A model or framework offers a hypothesis to test against their experience and the challenges they actually face. Where does it hold up? Where does it fall short? What might they need to adapt?

Making it their own means having a hand in answering those questions—and finding a reason to try it in their work.

That takes thoughtful design and facilitation that responds to what’s happening in the room.

The goal:
turn common sense
into common practice.

A Manifesto Against “Presumptuous Design”

Explore the work

HOW I HELP

Real people.
Real work.

Your people bring experience, opinions, pressure, and possibility. That’s where the work starts.

Expert facilitation
to make the room
think, feel, and do.

Bring purpose, participation, and thoughtful challenge to the moments when people need to learn, align, or move forward together.

Meetings & offsitesConferencesKeynotes

What this can look like ＋

A leadership offsite, a critical team conversation, a conference workshop, or a plenary session. I also deliver keynote presentations, moderate panels, emcee events, and help shape the learning experience across a larger gathering.

The format changes. My attention stays on the people in the room and what the experience needs to make possible.

Tell me about the room you’re bringing together ↗

Strengthen your
leaders’ effectiveness.

Equip your leaders and managers to have the conversations, exercise the judgment, and take the actions your organization needs.

Leadership & management developmentCoachingStrategy into action

What this can look like ＋

Leadership programs, cohort learning, coaching, and applied practice focused on the situations your leaders actually face: leading through uncertainty, influencing without authority, giving feedback, and translating strategy into team action.

Let’s talk about your leaders ↗

Try a little: the strategy conversation

You share your organization’s new strategy with your team. They nod politely. You ask, “Any questions?” Nobody has any.

Nods. No questions.
Now what?

Choose what you’d be most likely to do.

Develop your
facilitators’ expertise.

Strengthen your organization’s facilitation capability. Help your facilitators build the confidence and judgment to read the room, challenge thinking, and respond when the script stops helping.

Facilitator developmentObservation & coachingLearning design

What this can look like ＋

Facilitation skills development, practice with feedback, train-the-facilitator experiences, mentoring, and support for internal delivery. I help new and experienced facilitators make intentional choices and develop a style that’s genuinely their own.

I also design practical learning resources that help people prepare, troubleshoot, and keep developing after the session ends.

Let’s strengthen your facilitation capability ↗

Try a little: read the room

NOTICE → GET CURIOUS → CHOOSE

What’s happening in the workshop you’re leading?

Before deciding what to do, look at what you might be assuming. Choose a situation you recognize.

Ken De Loreto, founder of Provoke Learning

KEN DE LORETO / PROVOKE LEARNING

MEET KEN

Serious about
the work.
Human about
the people.

I’m Ken De Loreto—a facilitator, leadership coach, and learning designer.

Nearly four decades in leadership development and facilitation.

I draw on learning science and neuroscience to design for attention, emotion, practice, and reflection. My background in theatre informs how I use presence, timing, storytelling, and improvisation to help people connect with ideas and with each other.

I bring curiosity, candor, and humor to my work with frontline managers through senior teams—inviting people to question familiar thinking, connect with what matters, and find the confidence to try something different. I partner with organizations to develop leaders, strengthen internal facilitation capability, and create learning experiences people can put to work—from leadership programs and team offsites to large conference gatherings.

Some of the Organizations I’ve Worked With

Through direct engagements and partnerships with other learning consultancies.

L’Oréal · Corning · Legrand · Duke Energy · Apple · Gilead · American Express · Disney · MetLife · UPS · Fidelity · Citibank · Sherwin-Williams · PerkinElmer