Soft skills are the basis of Managerial work and Leadership. Improve your ability to lead!
What happens when your team’s interaction takes place through different mediums? While working remotely, it is often easier to focus on the matter at hand and forget about the underlying emotions and experiences. To make remote work more productive and keep up a good atmosphere, in addition to facts and tasks, you should pay special attention to people’s emotions and create a strong sense of community.
Influencing another person’s thinking and emotions can sometimes feel difficult, cruel or even manipulative. Even though coaching aims to influence other people’s thoughts, instead of giving them ready-made solutions and thinking patterns, a coach aims to help the person find ways to change their mind themselves.
Distributed work highlights the importance of agility. Agile methods are not only a necessary in distributed work, they are also better utilized in distributed work. But what does agility mean in practice?
Working life is full of difficult situations, discussions and conflicts. However, you should not be afraid of these – the perspective can be changed from a problem to a learning experience. However, it is good to see these situations as a process. Prepare for difficult situations and think about how to successfully reach the end result from the starting point.
We can participate in difficult situations and conflicts in several ways. We can be an injured party, a solver of conflict, or a bystander. Apart from our role, we all have five quick- fixes that we can utilize.
A coaching leadership approach is one leadership style among others. A coaching leader directs their energy towards people in order to utilize the potential of individuals and the group. It has been shown to increase individual well-being and organizational productivity. In the following video you will learn about the basic ideas of coaching.
Coaching leadership is a comprehensive approach that guides all leadership.
The goal of a coaching leader or supervisor is to act as an enabler of success, removing obstacles from the employees’ way. This can be achieved by giving the employees more authority and resources, by supporting the employees in figuring out solutions by themselves, and guiding experts in harnessing their full potential. The key benefits of coaching leadership include the organisation’s improved ability to react, increased motivation among the personnel, and harnessing
the potential of the entire work community.
length: 45 min
videos: 4
exercises: 4
Work community skills include giving feedback, resolving conflicts, influencing, facilitation and teamwork skills.
Positive work community skills promote complex thinking and
community spirit among your employees. When an organization has good work community skills, the employees work well with each other: they contemplate and discuss things and like to work in groups. This leads to increased
profitability and improved customer service. A supervisor’s
good work community skills will also show in successful feedback giving: people view feedback as a shared learning conversation.
length: 45 min
videos: 5
exercises: 5
A leader’s self knowledge includes awareness skills, motivation, stress management and recovery skills.
Good self knowledge helps a leader control their behaviour and modify it flexibly. The leader is aware of the emotions a situation elicits in them and how their behaviour affects other people. With retrospective self knowledge, you can reflect on your actions, motives and work more deeply afterwards. Self-knowledge makes it possible to define a constructive long-term focus that will help the team utilise their resources efficiently.
length: 45 min
videos: 5
exercises: 5
Supervisory work is largely about bringing people together to solve problems.
Difficult situations in work life are often complex dilemmas and contradictions that have no simple solution. It’s important for a supervisor to balance between conflicts of perspective, cultivate willingness to try things, and inspire the right kinds of moods within the team and yourself. A key ability is the ability to inspire the employees to consider the problem slowly and curiously, trying to outdo the previous solutions. When the supervisor’s problem solving skills are in order, you’re able to maintain a long term focus, have things running smoothly and reduce the number of conflicts.
length: 45 min
videos: 4
exercises: 4
The ability to influence moods consists of emotional skills, leading emotions, appreciation, trust and security.
Research shows that people’s productivity and ability to act are strongly dependent on the mood around them. When a supervisor has good emotional skills and knows how to lead emotions, it has a positive effect on the work community’s mood: people are smiling and accomplishing things, unbothered by stress. In a good atmosphere, morbidity rates go down and the number of sick leaves is halved. The three most important mood factors that maintain the employees’ ability to work are appreciation, trust and security. The atmosphere is also built by channelling emotions. It’s important that the leader or supervisor knows how to recognize
emotions and bring them up for discussion.
length: 45 min
videos: 4
exercises: 4
On an individual level, meaningful work promotes better job satisfaction, motivation and occupational health. On an organizational level, it increases the efficiency and quality of work; there are fewer sick leaves, and the employees are more committed to the organization.
What part does leadership play in the feeling of meaningfulness? When the organization is undergoing change, different crises and all sorts of instability, it’s crucial that the organization maintain a sense of continuity, communality and security. Coherence and continuity are an
inborn need for us humans. We want to maintain a sense of personal continuity of ourselves, our roles and our work, and we strive for building continuity in our lives.
length: 45 min
videos: 4
exercises: 4
As a team leader, you play a vital role in creating a high-quality working environment, in feeding your people’s motivation and especially in supporting your team members’ development.
In this tutorial we will go through the ways in which you as a team leader can best utilize our materials with your team.
length: 40 min
videos: 5
exercises: 3
The benefit of well-oiled remote work is the opportunity to achieve more and better results in a shorter time. Well-led remote work also increases your employees’ work satisfaction. However, the success of a remote team will largely depend on how the team is led.
This tutorial goes through the best practices for leading a remote team.
length: 2 h
videos: 8
exercises: 8
Transferring from traditional offices to a remote environment has brought us lots of new possibilities, but also many challenges. Although there are several similarities in hosting a workshop remotely or in a traditional meeting room, unique challenges may arise that fortunately can be tackled with virtual facilitation. So what is virtual facilitation about? What are the most common pitfalls of virtual meetings, and how could you conquer them?
This tutorial presents the best practices of virtual facilitation. Become a master in hosting virtual workshops!
length: 2 h
videos: 11
exercises: 10
Humane Productivity is the ability to make meaningful things happen in a way that enhances well-being and promotes shared learning.
How you work under pressure depends on your positivity, efficiency and flexibility. You can improve each of these areas. This Quick Fix explains the main aspects of working under pressure and guides you to improve your resilience.
Time management is about getting things done. You cannot manage time. You can, however, manage the way you use your time – you can determine what you do with your time, just like you can determine how you use your money.
Managing your time refers to planning what you’ll do with the time you have available so that you’ll have enough invested time and enough time to spend. It also means planning exactly what you are going to do when it’s time to invest time: in which activities will I use my time? The goal is always the same: achieving the ability to direct energy into those things that matter so that they would get done.
Goals can be examined through six perspectives. The first and perhaps the most important perspective is to understand that we often have several goals at once, and they can often be in conflict with one another.
Are you feeling a little distracted? Around you, devices are beeping and buzzing, alerting you to every text message, email or reminder as soon as it arrives. ADT is a tendency to jump from task-to-task, talking on the phone while you rush to your next meeting, sending emails and texts covertly while talking to a colleague, and generally trying to do too many things at once.
Focusing means the ability to direct your energy into things that matter. In order to do a good job, you must focus on the task. In this video, you will learn about the three areas of focusing.
If you want to develop yourself, you need to stop and think about the next version of yourself.
The world is constantly changing and learning has gone online. Self-paced online learning has brought about new kinds of freedom and possibilities, but also challenges and responsibility. How does online learning differ from the more traditional ways of learning? This video goes through the best practices and most common pitfalls of online learning.
How should you motivate yourself and others to do mundane tasks? This video teaches you three practical and efficient methods for improving motivation.
In today’s working life, we constantly face interruptions. You should learn to control them. It is important to first identify the interruption, accept the situation and take overtime.
Have you ever considered how big an effect interaction and other people have on you and your recovery? We are dependent on other people – the feeling of being part of a social system and having good quality encounters are extremely important.
This video goes through the basics of your recovery: which things affect your energy levels and how could you easily improve your recovery?
Today’s working life is full of challenges and opportunities. It requires continuous learning, adaptation, and managing change for both organizations and individuals. In this video, we will discuss how we can develop our own adaptability to change and lead our own skills to meet future needs. This video provides practical tips and insights into managing our skills in a changing work environment. We can all evolve and succeed in constant change!
Recovery divides into two: physical and mental – body and mind. Physical recovery is the basis on which mental recovery builds.
Most of us know what physical recovery processes there are:
sleep, nutrition & exercise. But what do you know about mental recovery? Do you know how you could improve your mental recovery? In this tutorial, you will learn methods and processes to develop your recovery skills, welcome!
length: 2 h 30 min
videos: 8
exercises: 9
Many people struggle with getting a good night’s sleep, causing difficulties in other parts of their lives. Have you tried to improve your sleep?
This tutorial focuses on improving your ability to fall asleep
and to improve the quality of your sleep. Improving sleep involves making a few simple, but powerful shifts in routine and behaviors. Want to know what they are?
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 7
exercises: 6
This short tutorial teaches you the basics of mindfulness and helps you get started with training. By doing the exercises every day for a couple of weeks, you will notice positive effects, such as better sleep & concentration – or simply an improved mood!
length: 40 min
videos: 6
exercises: 6
Time management is about getting things done. You cannot manage time. You can, however, manage the way you use your time – you can determine yourself what you do with your time, just like you can determine how you use your money. Managing your time refers to planning what you’ll do with the time you have available so that you’ll have enough invested time and enough time to spend.
length: 1 h
videos: 4
exercises: 3
Focusing means the ability to direct your energy into things that matter. In order to do a good job, you must focus on the task. Today, however, our lives are full of interruptions and stimuli that distract our minds. In this course, you will learn to master five focusing skills.
length: 2 h
videos: 8
exercises: 12
Work life is transitioning into a hybrid model, where different models of remote work and office work are combined flexibly. In this training, we will introduce you to the core principles of leading your own work and working smoothly.
This training will encourage you to consider your concentration skills and time-management skills and recognise the best work environments for different work tasks. After this training, you will have a solid foundation for planning your everyday life better, even in hybrid work, and you will learn to act efficiently with less energy!
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 7
exercises: 6
Learning has become an essential part of our work life, and its importance continues to increase. However, often learning is seen as relevant only when you are required to know something or master a new skill.
length: 1h
videos: 4
exercises: 4
Collaboration is how value is created. We need each other to make a difference.
The success of a virtual team depends largely on how well its members communicate and whether they are able to trust one another. While building trust among team members is important in all configurations of teams, it is essential in virtual teams, where individuals typically have fewer points of contact and need to be able to rely on one another’s work ethic and communication skills.
Understanding diversity presents several benefits: firstly, we understand each others’ behavior better and recognize how situational factors affect us. Secondly, you get a better understanding of the team dynamics: the team’s collective strengths, unique contributions of
team members, and potential blind spots and development opportunities.
How to create a respectful environment through interaction?
To promote a good mood as a team member, you need to be motivated for good quality interaction and make conscious choices for that while working with other people. Focus on the positives and stay curious and interested in others.
Psychological safety affects a team’s performance, its climate, knowledge sharing and creativity.
It is equally important that you are able to be yourself both at work and during your free time. Sharing your inner world, your emotions, thought processes, and even insecurities builds mutual appreciation, trust, and
psychological safety.
An organization is just a concept; there are only people & personalities. We often forget when speaking to other people that their behavior is guided by their experiences. It is important to see the other person as a complete package and to understand that we are dealing with human experiences. Added value comes from interaction, and interaction is always a human activity that comes from experience. The first person you need to see is yourself.
By listening, you open up to each other’s experiences and accept them as they are. Talking conveys three levels: words, emotions, and needs. You should accept other people’s emotions, but you can question the way the emotions are expressed.
Emotions are natural for us, yet we have a tendency to avoid expressing our emotions. Often, however, we are
able to sense what the other person is feeling, no matter what they say. It is important to accept that yours and others’ emotions are equally valuable.
Prosocial behavior refers to consciously choosing to interact in ways that have benefits to your and other people’s well-being. Research indicates that this is extremely healthy and beneficial for us. It has a similar effect on the work community and it increases people’s productivity.
The workplace – and the way teams work together – is undergoing significant transformation. More and more work is done remotely, and the amount of virtual teams is increasing.
This quick-fix gives you practical
tips on working in a digital environment.
The objective of feedback is to learn. Actually, instead of “feedback”, we should call the activity “learning discussions”. Feedback is not about one person telling others how they should do their work. The goal is to recognize together what have you done
so far and how could you develop your actions further. There are three simple quick fixes for you to
begin with. What are they?
Accepting feedback can be hard, which is why it is important to learn to manage your emotions. How do you feel when getting feedback? What makes it difficult for you to receive feedback? What would be the best way to give you feedback?
To promote a good mood for your part as a team member, you need to be motivated for good quality interaction and make conscious choices for that while working with other people. Often the things we discuss are complex and involve conflicting views, especially when it’s something new. Creative, high-quality interaction can be summed up in three words: curiosity, courage, and playfulness.
In this training, we will tell you how to best utilize online trainings together with your team. You will get tips for facilitating conversation sand motivating your team members. We offer alternative methods of learning together – you can pick the one that works best for your team.
As a team leader, you play an important role in creating a high-quality work life, feeding motivation, and supporting the development of your team members, which is particularly important. Learning together is a powerful tool for improving the productivity and wellbeing in your team – as individuals and as a community.
length: 2 h
videos: 11
exercises: 10
Diversity is an asset and a strength, once understood correctly. Understanding diversity improves your selfawareness, appreciation towards differences and develops your ability to evaluate tasks that are suitable for you. Understanding personalities helps you succeed in modern working life.
This course dives into the best- known personality theory, the Big Five. The Big Five model presents five personality traits: Need for Stability, Extraversion, Originality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness.
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 7
exercises: 7
Changes in the team and work environment pose new kinds of challenges that you can influence with your actions. Resilience and the ability to change play a key role in hybrid work. This training lets you develop your ability to act in hybrid work and in an ever- changing world by improving your resilience. When faced with difficult situations, it’s worth to think about your own actions and ways to make them more favourable. It’s a good idea to do this reflection with your team as well and see how changes have affected the way you work together. You will learn practical tips on how to have these difficult conversations online as well. You will learn to understand and process emotions in tough situations and focus on positive interaction.
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 4
exercises: 5
Working life is becoming more and more interactive. It is important to learn to be present in interaction. Being present requires five keys: concreteness, listening, assertiveness, positivity and shared goals. Learn how to use these keys to improve your interaction skills.
length: 1 h
videos: 9
exercises: 3
Everyday encounters define the atmosphere at work. Each encounter impacts the community and how well it can succeed.
Have you ever considered how big an effect interaction and other people have on you and your recovery? We are dependent on other people – the feeling of being part of a social system and having good quality encounters are extremely important.
This video goes through the basics of your recovery: which things affect your energy levels and how could you easily improveyour recovery?
In this training, we introduce to you the basics of good colleagueship.
What’s so useful about good colleagueship? Cooperation lies at the heart of every work community’s performance. We are always dependent on others whenever we try to accomplish things. Colleagueship is about the cooperative everyday relationships, and the atmosphere in which people cooperate. Each daily encounter affects the entire community’s success. For this reason, colleagueship is a central resource of any community.
length: 1 h
videos: 7
exercises: 6
How do you build a connection with another person as quickly as possible? How do you maintain this connection, and how do you process increasingly complex things together, even if you have less time to build the work relationship? Colleagueship invites us to think about interaction and our social networks. How do we interact with people, and how do we maintain a good spirit and solve problems as diversely as possible?
length: 45 min
videos: 3
exercises: 4
There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to understanding other people.
We tend to explain someone’s unwanted or unexplainable behavior with their permanent personality traits, such as level of intelligence or natural inclinations.We form a static picture of the other person and feel like we can’t work with this person or that we don’t get along with them, their thinking or actions are so rigid. However, by understanding personal differences, not forming understanding of others based on shallow conceptions, and not assuming other people’s experiences are similar to yours, you can improve your interaction with others.
length: 1 h
videos: 4
exercises: 4
Developing colleagueship is a challenging process. Our ability to maintain relationships is limited and as colleagueship is in a constant state of change, there are no hard and fast rules for developing it. Inevitably we come across difficult situations in our collegial relationships.How should we react in the different stages and situations of colleagueship?
By understanding the different stages and difficult situations of colleagueship we can find the right strategies for developing it. We can also learn to create a complete picture of where our relationships are at and how they are going.
length: 1 h
videos: 5
exercises: 8
Work is done together. The quality of teamwork determines the end result and the atmosphere. This three-part High Performing Team tutorial answers the question: How do I enhance teamwork?
In the first part of this tutorial, we focus on the most common challenges and most prominent solutions for teamwork.The course aims to develop team practices, consider team roles, discuss rules, and create a common goal.
We recommend that the teams conduct the training together so that each member of the team completes the content of the module independently and then the team leader facilitates a joint discussion on the subject. The tutorial provides the facilitator with instructions on how to guide the learning sessions.
This is the first course of the High Performing Team tutorial.
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 8
exercises: 6
In this second course of the High Performing Team tutorial, we will focus on diversity and interaction. We will discuss how to improve your team’s atmosphere and encourage respectful interaction. In addition, you’ll learn how to navigate conflict situations and recognize diversity as an asset!
We recommend that the teams conduct the training together so that each member of the team completes the content of the module independently and then the team leader facilitates a joint discussion on the subject. The tutorial provides the facilitator with instructions on how to guide the learning sessions.
This is the second course of the High Performing Team tutorial.
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 5
exercises: 7
In this third and final course of the High Performing Team tutorial, we will focus on execution and accomplishment. You’ll learn how to boost decision making, how to evaluate your actions, and the benefits of trial and error.
We recommend that the teams conduct the training together so that each member of the team completes the content of the module independently and then the team leader facilitates a joint discussion on the subject. The tutorial provides the facilitator with instructions on how to guide the learning sessions.
This is the third and final course of the High Performing Team tutorial.
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 5
exercises: 7
Mindset affects the way you automatically think and feel about yourself, the world and other people. It is a collection of attitudes and skills that you can learn to apply.
This quick fix discusses what you can do in a situation that feels meaningless. You can work to make situations feel more meaningful. It requires you noticing your mood and actively working to change it.
Meaningfulness is one of the key motivators in human life. However, in working life, it often disappears due to the stress, hectic schedules, and organizational structures.
Top performance, good decisions and new perspectives all begin with our ability to see things in a new light. What kind of automatic attitudes do you have? You should get to know your attitudes, as they have a strong influence on your life. They affect your ability to see things in a new way and expand your thinking.
We easily see things as the fault of circumstances or someone else and feel powerless with them. Leaving
the role of the victim means a permanent change of attitude – so how should you do it?
We all have a tendency to talk critically to ourselves. Consider this: Would you talk like that to a friend of yours? Would you compare them the same way you compare yourself to others?
Self-compassion is about being friendly to yourself.
If you watch the video together, discuss the insights it evokes. Here’s a question you can start with:
How could you practice self-compassion today?
How do emotions work? How should you react to them? In today’s working life, besides expressing our thoughts and ideas, it is essential that we get to express our emotions as well. Therefore, it is extremely important
that you learn to recognize, acknowledge, and express yours and others’ emotions in a constructive way.
Perfectionism refers to the desire to do things as well as possible and the subsequent belief that perfection is something to aim for.
Top performance, good decisions and new perspectives all begin with our ability to see things in a new light. This tutorial focuses on developing your mindset. You will notice changes instantly!
+ Creativity and innovativeness – learn to see things in new ways
+ Agile Learning – create a new attitude towards learning
+ An attitude of growth – create a positive understanding of your
abilities
+ Courage – create a constructive mindset towards mistakes and
failing
+ Perfectionism – create a healthy attitude towards perfectionism
length: 1 h 30 min
videos: 5
exercises: 3
How fast are you able to find something positive in a difficult situation? Positivity is not a given, but you can and you should practice it, as it will help you and others around you!
length: 1 h
videos: 2
exercises: 4
The view of humanity, our internal concept of what humans are like, plays a significant role in our everyday life. The way we see the world and others around us has a strong effect on our actions, choices and beliefs. This mini-course dives into how you could change your view of humanity, and why. Welcome to the tutorial!
length: 40 min
videos: 2
exercises: 2
The Academy of Brain has assembled its own team of experts to ensure that the online training content is based on strong expertise, scientific research and hands-on experience.
Ville is a psychologist with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. He has more than a decade of experience in the areas of change management and psychological working-life skills training.
Minna is a professor of educational sciences at the University of Helsinki and at CiCERO Learning Network where she uses neuroscientific methods to understand the role of memory and attention in learning. In addition, she leads the international Master’s Programme in Changing Education.
Jarmo has a master’s degree in economics and is an executive coach and organizational consultant. He has 15 years of leadership experience and 20 years of coaching experience with individuals, groups and organizations.
