Mastering Facilitation

The Art of Safe Spaces

Finding my calling

Facilitation has been in the center of my professional journey since discovering it during my time as a student at Hyper Island. It was there that I first experienced the transformative power of facilitation, a career path that I was previously unaware of, but has given me a rich professional as well as personal life. 

Before joining Hyper Island, I intended to continue my career in advertising with a focus on digital strategy. I had previously completed a bachelor’s in business administration and marketing, and after that landed my first job at an advertising agency in Canada. During my first week at Hyper Island, I experienced my first facilitated workshops. This experience made a huge impression on me. Instead of wanting to be the person with the best idea, I became interested in how I could help groups come up with better ideas together. I saw a huge potential in using facilitation as a tool to help groups solve complex problems together, especially in the context of the digital transformation that was happening at the time, and that I had witnessed firsthand working in advertising as new digital media was being adopted. 

During the remaining part of the Digital Media program at Hyper Island, I continued to explore facilitation, workshop design, and design thinking. For my internship, I got the opportunity to go to Buenos Aires to participate in the development of a new innovation incubator created by Mondelez to support innovation in the area of marketing. This was a great opportunity to use what I had learned at Hyper Island, as I got to use the facilitation and design thinking skills I had acquired to help create innovative solutions in advertising that leverage new technology and media. 

During the following years of my career I leveraged facilitation and human-centered design in helping advertising agencies adapt to new ways of collaborating and solving problems in response to the digital transformation of communications. Facilitation became both a personal journey and a profession, as I spent over a decade working with organizations to teach and implement these critical skills. I had the opportunity to work with advertising agencies, marketing departments, schools, and startups, facilitating everything from one-day learning experiences and workshops to longer programs lasting years to enable sustainable change. 

After a few years in Buenos Aires, I met the founders of Mural and gladly decided to join their team to help enable remote collaboration for teams globally through their digital whiteboard. With my previous experience in facilitation, workshop and learning experience design and facilitation, together with my international background, mostly for in-person contexts, this was a great chance to apply and develop my skills to the digital space. My work with Mural was a turning point, enabling me to explore and refine facilitation practices specifically designed for remote and hybrid environments. I dived into the nuances of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, helping teams overcome the unique challenges of working across time zones, tools, and physical boundaries. These experiences not only broadened my skills but also deepened my appreciation for the evolving nature of facilitation along with new technology.

During this time, I also had the opportunity to collaborate with Publicitarias, a foundation that seeks to encourage female participation and leadership in agencies, as well as inform and educate about the influence that communication has on gender equality. Together with Publicitarias, I developed workshops and tools to enable teams to create more inclusive content. We created a package that anyone could use to facilitate conversations on the topic with their team, as well as evaluate and brainstorm ideas. This experience once again proved the transformative power of facilitation, and through developing these tools, we were able to enable the Publicitarias community to become change agents in their own contexts. The tool was also co-created together with the community, a process that I also got to facilitate. This also opened me up to the possibilities of using facilitation tools and techniques on a larger scale to achieve a bigger impact and involve whole communities. 

Maturing as a facilitator

Still, the more I learned, the more I realized how much there was yet to discover. With more than 10 years of experience in facilitation, and as I began to receive opportunities to lead more intricate and complex projects, I felt the need to validate and update my skills further. I had also grown into facilitation as my professional role and felt more sure than ever that the path I’m on is the right one. Certification became a natural next step, not just as a proof of professional validation but also as an opportunity to grow, connect, and contribute to a broader community of facilitators.

Choosing the certification program with Voltage Control felt like the perfect fit. My history with the organization, dating back to my time at Mural, had already left a strong impression. The weekly Facilitation Lab with Douglas and Eric became a space for me where I had a chance to meet and learn from other experienced facilitators. The environment was very friendly yet challenging, which offered the right mix of safety and motivation to keep improving my craft. Through Mural, I also had the opportunity to collaborate with Douglas on webinars, workshops, and the creation of templates to enable others to facilitate better meetings and workshops. I was very inspired by their professional approach, broad knowledge of methods and techniques, and their constant reinvention of methods that make every experience feel inspiring and fresh. The Voltage Control team and community had been there for many years during my career as a source for co-creation, collaboration, learning and inspiration. So, when I was laid off from Mural and received an invitation to join the program, it felt like a moment of alignment. I was ready to relaunch my career, refine my skills, and rediscover my unique voice as a facilitator.

Immersing myself in the program: A journey of growth

The certification program was a transformative three-month journey, allowing enough time for reflection, hands-on work, and reading in between facilitated community learning sessions. The sessions provided an opportunity to reflect and discuss insights and learnings together as a group from books we read during the program, such as The Art of Gathering and Gamestorming. Even if these books have been part of my toolkit for many years, discussing them with others allowed me to deepen my understanding and uncover new insights. Additionally, reading and discussing The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making gave me practical tools for managing difficult situations. We also did exercises that allowed us to practice certain techniques and skills from the books together.

One of the highlights was building my facilitation portfolio and working in pairs with other participants during the course. This process was both retrospective and introspective, allowing me to reflect on my experiences and articulate my strengths. Receiving feedback from peers was invaluable; it provided new perspectives and helped me develop my identity as a facilitator. Supporting other participants with their portfolios gave me new perspectives, and it was also a way to get to know each other quickly. 

Another aspect of the course that was very valuable to me was taking turns facilitating activities. Facilitating a group of seasoned professionals, followed by constructive feedback, was a unique and deeply enriching experience. The community-based learning fostered an environment of shared growth. Facilitating and sharing in front of experienced professionals pushed me out of my comfort zone. While this added pressure, it also underscored the value of their feedback. Having access to a group of professional facilitators, with their high expectations, is a powerful source of learning and improvement.

One particularly memorable moment was the final presentation. Watching everyone confidently present their identities as facilitators was one of the most inspiring moments of the course. The program’s duration allowed genuine transformation to take place, and the mutual support among participants made the journey even more meaningful. 

The personal coaching sessions with Erik provided tailored feedback and expert insights that significantly impacted my development. Throughout the program, he generously shared stories and learnings from his own career, both in group sessions and one-on-one coaching. I found the individual coaching especially valuable in identifying areas for growth, refining my voice, and defining my identity as a facilitator. This personal support complemented the group sessions, where we learned from each other while also focusing on our unique development needs.

Developing my superpower

Through the program, I rediscovered my superpower: the ability to create safe and respectful environments where people feel free to express themselves. This not only reaffirmed my passion for facilitation but also underscored the importance of continually learning and growing. Intuition and communication are essential, but having self-awareness and a robust toolkit of techniques and approaches makes it easier to navigate any situation.

Putting skills into practice

Since completing the certification, I’ve already begun applying what I learned in various ways. My role as Community Lead at Howspace has provided the perfect opportunity to implement these skills. I’ve designed workshops that address complex challenges for senior learning and transformation leaders. Feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive and they especially appreciate the professional yet relaxed environment and feel empowered to share openly.

Facilitating and moderating workshops with senior leaders presented both an exciting opportunity and a unique challenge. Their time is valuable, and each session had to be carefully designed to ensure it provided meaningful takeaways. Additionally, being significantly younger than most participants, I needed the confidence to guide discussions with authority while maintaining a humble and open approach. The skills I gained from Voltage Control prepared me for this, allowing me to create engaging, high-impact experiences where leaders felt heard, challenged, and inspired.

Building a thriving community requires more than just gathering people; it demands the creation of shared experiences that provide real value. To keep sessions dynamic and engaging, I drew from the broad range of facilitation techniques I had mastered. Each meeting included time for structured team-building, giving members the opportunity to connect on a deeper level and build trust. Without this, open and honest discussions wouldn’t have been possible, the true value of the community came from learning from each other. At the same time, the workshops needed to be results-driven. The workshop design techniques I had refined through the Voltage Control program allowed me to skillfully guide groups from complex challenges to actionable solutions within the limited hours available.

Moderating discussions with experts on transformation was another critical aspect of my role. Having practiced my own facilitation and communication skills in the program, I felt prepared to lead these conversations in an inclusive, professional, and structured way, ensuring all voices were heard while keeping discussions on track. At the same time, adapting to a new digital collaboration platform, Howspace, introduced another layer of complexity. Unlike the freeform nature of the Mural whiteboard, Howspace provided a more structured environment that leveraged AI for real-time synthesis. While it required a shift in approach, it also enabled a new way of facilitating at scale, accelerating decision-making, and fostering meaningful participation in ways I hadn’t explored before.

Another notable application was in my work as a facilitator and learning experience designer for #TechElevateHER, a four month long program created by Tik Tok and Geek Girl Meetup for young women from the Nordics. I designed diverse learning experiences, balancing online and offline, synchronous and asynchronous sessions. During the spring we travelled to all the Nordic capitals with the program to deliver weekend-long hybrid and in-person workshops, and in-between we hosted interactive sessions online. The feedback I received highlighted the strong sense of community my team-building and reflection activities fostered, proving that facilitation can deeply impact group dynamics.

One of the most impactful moments of my work with #TechElevateHER was facilitating team-building exercises on the very first day. We wanted the program to do more than just prepare participants for careers in tech through lectures, workshops, and mentorship, we wanted it to be the foundation of a strong, supportive network of women who could uplift each other long after the program ended. To set the right tone, I designed a mix of activities that encouraged them to relax, play, and connect. We started with movement-based exercises to shake off any nerves, followed by creative tasks including drawing, which brought laughter and eased participants into a more open mindset. One of the most effective activities was having them create their own icebreaker questions, giving them ownership over how they got to know one another. By the end of the program, many participants reflected that these initial sessions played a crucial role in helping them bond, making them feel comfortable enough to support and learn from one another throughout the journey.

Beyond the in-person sessions, I also designed online collaborative learning experiences to keep engagement high between physical meetings. While the participants were digital natives, many had little experience using corporate collaboration platforms, so I needed to create an experience that was intuitive, engaging, and meaningful. Since the program took place on weekends and many participants were juggling studies or running their own businesses, the online component had to feel like a natural extension of their learning rather than an added burden. My time in the Voltage Control program proved invaluable here, as I had learned from other facilitators about the challenges and solutions they had encountered in creating engaging experiences. Drawing from those insights, I crafted interactive, easy-to-navigate sessions that kept participants motivated, ensuring they stayed connected and continued learning between in-person gatherings.

Looking ahead: Ambitions and aspirations

This certification has given me the confidence to tackle larger, more complex projects and organizations. I feel better equipped to facilitate in challenging situations and to work with diverse groups, regardless of age, industry, or culture.

Looking to the future, I am eager to continue exploring how facilitation can enhance collaborative peer-to-peer and community learning, drive organizational change, and improve collaboration in hybrid work settings. I am particularly drawn to creating more human-centered work experiences and helping organizations adopt new mental models for transformation.

A journey of growth

Looking back on this experience, I am grateful for the encouragement I received during the program to follow my passion. The connections I made with my portfolio partners and the broader community were unexpected yet invaluable outcomes. Having a network to share my facilitation journey with, people to learn from, seek advice from, and offer support to, has been more than I expected to gain from the course.

The program made me feel confident to take on more complex and sensitive initiatives involving many stakeholders. I feel eager to work both as an independent consultant or as part of a team, helping organizations develop facilitative leadership capabilities, improve the way they work and collaborate, or solve challenges. I see opportunities to guide organizations through transformation, support them in building better ways of working, and create environments where participation and shared decision-making lead to meaningful change. With the skills I’ve gained, I feel more prepared to design and facilitate sessions that respect the time and expertise of senior leaders while ensuring productive and valuable outcomes.

In the coming years, I want to continue exploring how to support organizations in becoming learning organizations, building their change capabilities, strengthening facilitative leadership, and managing conflicts effectively. Facilitation has just started to become part of the mainstream conversation. It is increasingly becoming an in-house skill and is recognized as an essential leadership skill. In this context I also feel great responsibility of making sure my skills are up to date and that I’m facilitating in an ethical and safe way, another reason why pursuing a certification is important. As they state in The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, it takes decades for a social innovation to truly become embedded. Facilitation can be supported by AI, especially to support diversity and inclusivity, but facilitation skills such as holding space for difficult conversations and disagreements can’t be replaced. 

The Voltage Control community has been a great support system in this journey. I still check in with the people I met in the course, and they help remind me of what I’ve learned and reconnect me with my purpose. When I face facilitation challenges, I know I can always turn to this network for insights and encouragement. It’s also been valuable to have a group of peers to collaborate with or refer opportunities to when projects fall outside my expertise. Looking ahead, I want to continue growing, learning, and contributing to the evolution of facilitation as a key capability for the future of work.

Erik and Douglas deserve special mention for their exceptional facilitation. Their expertise, guidance, and encouragement were fundamental in shaping this transformative journey.

This certification was more than a professional milestone; it was a deeply personal journey of growth, discovery, and connection. I am excited to continue leveraging these experiences to create meaningful, impactful facilitation opportunities in the future. For anyone curious about facilitation, my advice is simple: dive in, connect with others, and embrace the growth process. Certification is just one step, but it’s a powerful one.ture of our communities. And trust me, we need as many people as possible stepping into that space.