Office workers spend a considerable amount of their work time in meetings—studies show this can range between 20–50 %. Meetings are highly impactful as they provide excellent opportunities for discussion, dialogue, sharing information, making decisions, and agreeing on implementation plans.
However, decisions made in meetings often fail to materialize. Studies reveal startling figures, with 50–67 % of meeting decisions remaining unimplemented. This is often due to unclear accountability, lack of follow-up actions, or failure to define the next steps during meetings. Improvements can be achieved by focusing on clarity in decision-making, assigning responsibilities, and committing to concrete follow-up actions—all areas where facilitation can have a powerful impact.
How should facilitation skills be developed? Improving facilitation skills requires training, practice, and encouragement.
The foundation is built by learning the basics of facilitation. This includes familiarizing oneself with the fundamentals of both in-person and virtual meetings, mastering a comprehensive toolbox of facilitation techniques, and adopting best practices. At this stage, it’s important to actively reflect—both individually and with colleagues—on where and how facilitation skills could be applied.
Facilitation is about collaborative learning and experiential practice. Once the basics have been covered through training, it’s time to apply facilitation skills in situations identified as suitable during personal and shared reflections. Through practice, the tools and methods introduced in the training become integrated into the organization’s culture. Over time, your team will develop facilitation methods tailored to your organization’s specific goals and situations.
Establishing facilitation as a habit also requires encouragement. Employees need to be instilled with a bold mindset, emphasizing a willingness to learn and experiment. During trials, it’s essential to provide encouragement, recognition, and feedback. Successes begin to establish habits, leading to smoother meetings and enhanced productivity. Soon, employees will realize that these skills can be applied in other contexts, and their use will expand. As a result, facilitation becomes less intimidating for experts and managers alike. Employees start to understand that facilitation doesn’t have to be complicated and that anyone with basic skills and the willingness to use them can succeed. This marks a significant transformation in workplace culture.
Facilitation is an enabler of modern work life. Today’s workplace constantly presents situations where facilitation can make a difference. You can use facilitation to develop strategies, manage change, foster teamwork, improve cross-department collaboration, innovate new products, enhance services, resolve conflicts—the possibilities are endless.
Facilitation brings efficiency to these situations, ensures every voice is heard, and saves time. Most importantly, it ensures that plans and decisions are more likely to translate into actionable outcomes.
The Facilitation Tutorial Package is designed to bring real change to the facilitation capabilities of professionals and managers. We develop facilitation skills through researched knowledge, microlearning, and reflection:
This creates meaningful change—your team will use facilitation more often and more effectively. The result is better meeting productivity and higher success rates in implementing plans made during meetings.
The Facilitation Tutorial Package is designed for beginners in facilitation and those interested in enhancing their skills. It offers practical tools for effectively guiding group processes in various work environments and situations. Whether working in-person or remotely, the Facilitation Training Package helps elevate facilitation skills to a new level, empowering teams to perform at their best.
Good course, good use cases clearly explained.”
“The course was a great introduction to the basic principles and general mindset of facilitation methods and taught several methods with practical examples of how to apply them in real work situations.”
“A good concise package that brought together the basics of remote facilitation. Some of it was already familiar, but there were also some new things to pick up. When you start practising these, both meetings and different kinds of events will definitely become more meaningful for everyone.”
Academy of Brain muuttaa mielesi käyttäytymistieteelliseen tutkimukseen perustuvien valmennusten avulla. Verkkovalmennukset kehittävät tärkeimpiä työelämätaitoja, hyvinvointia ja itsensä johtamista. Opit palautumaan ja keskittymään sekä parannat vuorovaikutustaitoja, johtamista ja tapaa toimia määrätietoisesti paineen alla. Sisällöt keskittyvät psykologisten taitojen (soft skills) kehittämiseen. Tässä muutamia esimerkkejä sisällöistämme, jotka ovat kaikki palvelussa käytössäsi:
At the heart of our solution is the ability to reflect—both individually and as a group. Reflection is not just an individual skill; it is something teams can engage in together to learn from their experiences, adapt to new situations, and support one another in reaching their full potential. When teams make reflection a regular habit, it transforms their interactions, problem-solving approaches, and the way they develop new ideas.
Our training programs emphasize reflection skills because they are essential for building a sustainable work environment. We guide our clients’ teams in having meaningful conversations, questioning their assumptions, and exploring new ideas collaboratively. This shared reflection fosters stronger connections, deeper understanding, and a culture where continuous improvement becomes the norm. This is especially vital as artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly active part of the workplace.
– Academy of Brain, the science of Soft Skills learning
