Bespoke training & consultancy

Building on two decades of combined facilitation experience, we offer bespoke training and consultancy to help organisations design and deliver meetings, events and/or programmes that are:

• Purposeful & effective

• Connecting & inclusive

• Engaging & creative

Why?

The amount of time we spend in meetings and calls has exploded since lockdown. Office workers are now spending anywhere between 30% and 70% of their working life in virtual or face to face meetings. 

That could be a good thing, if our meetings fostered connection and creativity. But instead they often are making us ineffective and unwell - with many experiencing severe Zoom fatigue. According to Harvard Business School, this is having a negative toll on productivity, focus and engagement.

Reducing the quantity of meetings is only part of the answer. We also need to focus on the quality of meetings in order to enable real collaboration, creativity, innovation, deeper relationships and information exchange. A survey of 5,000 knowledge workers across four continents finds that “meetings are ineffective 72% of the time and are the number one barrier to productivity.” However, it concludes that “meetings aren’t evil, they’re just poorly done.” One of their key recommendations is that organisations invest in boosting their facilitation skills.

Our Approach

Our consultancy is aimed at purpose-driven organisations that want to nurture a thriving, collaborative, creative and innovative culture. We tailor our training and consultancy to your specific needs - but examples include:

(1) In-house facilitation training to improve the quality of internal and external meetings. For example, this could be two x 3 hour online workshops for up to 10 staff members where we:

• Clarify and agree on a shared purpose for the training

• Train staff in the application of key facilitation frameworks

• Explore key principles for increasing inclusivity and engagement

• Work through a live example and how to apply the facilitation framework(s) to specific meetings

• Share ideas and inspiration based on our experience as facilitators

(2) Consultancy and coaching to support the design and delivery of an important meeting, event or retreat.

• Work on detailed agenda design

• Provide training on the application of key facilitation frameworks

• Advise on methods for improving participant engagement

• Help the facilitation team to identify their strengths and weaknesses

• Role play particular exercises and give expert feedback

• Troubleshoot challenges / dilemmas

• Provide 1-2-1 mentoring to boost facilitation skills and confidence

Outcomes

Our training and consultancy programmes will help your organisation to run higher quality meetings and events that will:

• Be purposeful and effective

• Boost creativity and innovation

• Form deeper relationships within teams; enhancing collaboration

• Increase wellbeing; reducing zoom fatigue & restoring mental energy

Feedback from our 2023 online facilitation courses:

• 100% gained in confidence to lead groups

• 100% significantly developed their facilitation skills

• 100% learned new models they felt comfortable to apply in practice