Hello, and welcome!

Want to stay in the know on my latest writing? Subscribe.
Interested in working together? Drop me a note.

Whether you're facilitating workshops, leading teams, or navigating complex decisions, here you'll find practical tools, frameworks, and lessons drawn from my real-world work with leadership teams and organizations.

I'm Jackie Colburn. Strategist, facilitator, human.
For nearly two decades, I've partnered with teams across industries to navigate complexity, unlock possibilities, and design a better way forward.

Jackie Colburn Jackie Colburn

Transform teams and boost your EQ with this invisible leadership skill

What does “holding space” really mean with regard to leading? And what impact can you expect to see when you embody it? Here, I cover 3 practical ways you can improve your ability to hold space in your leadership role, with actionable “homework” assignments to help you build muscle memory around this skill.

Read More

How to improve a mature product with a Design Sprint

How do you confidently improve and refine a mature product while mitigating risks and maintaining user trust? A Design Sprint may be just what you need. Learn why and how to run a Design Sprint for your mature product, with some tangible evaluation criteria to help you determine if a Design Sprint is right for your team.

Read More

How to handle tough conversations at work and at home

When conflict arises in work and life, it can seem easier to ignore or divert, but finding middle ground helps us become more resilient, better communicators and de-escalators, and better at embracing diverse perspectives. In this article, you’ll learn facilitator-approved tools and mindsets to better navigate hard conversations at work and in your personal life.

Read More
Facilitation Resources Jackie Colburn Facilitation Resources Jackie Colburn

5 ways to facilitate better team collaboration

With people working in distributed, remote, and hybrid capacities, teams are more reliant than ever on virtual meetings and workshops to help accelerate ideas and projects. But how do we overcome meeting fatigue and skepticism? With the right tools, methods, and activities, we can make meetings more productive and enjoyable. The facilitator-approved tips in this article will help you do just that!

Read More
Resilience & Balance Jackie Colburn Resilience & Balance Jackie Colburn

How to avoid burnout this summer

Summer can feel so precious, signaling time to rest and find ease. But it may also usher in a seemingly-endless number of things to do that compete with the desire to simply slow down. It’s a vicious cycle, but there are resources, habits, and mindsets you can use to cultivate more balance and less burnout. This article includes the most powerful tools that have helped me do just that.

Read More

How to use visual aids to facilitate better collaboration

Visual aids are a necessary tool for anyone who facilitates group collaboration. They break up dense information, activate different parts of the brain, and help participants better visualize ideas. As a facilitator, there are three primary ways I use visual aids, which I’ll cover in this article along with some examples you can apply directly to your work.

Read More

Unlock your most important leadership superpower

Empowered teams consistently outperform their counterparts—and an empowered team is only possible with the right leadership behaviors. In this article, my goal is to help you unlock the superpower that will help you cultivate more empowered teams. This advice is rooted in my work as a facilitator and the observations I’ve made working with teams of all types and sizes, as well as their leaders. 

Read More

Reach out to see how we might partner.