Become a Certified Emotional Change Strategy Practitioner

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Experience and learn practical research-informed strategies that you can implement straight away after this Emotional Change Strategy Certification Course.

Course Focus: Recognise & shape the emotions needed to navigate organisational change effectively

Approach: Collaborative & Inclusive

Benefits: Gain insights into managing emotions during change, fostering resilience, maintaining employee engagement and building alignment.

Why Emotional Change Strategy matters

Change is happening all the time, whether emergent, planned or both. Whether you are leading a small team through a restructure, guiding an organisation-wide shift, or supporting individuals during transition, this course will help you lead change in a more human, more effective way.

Change can fail if we focus on plans and if we don’t consider how people feel. How people feel about change has a significant impact on the success of change initiatives.

In this course you will learn how to lead and facilitate change with conversations that put people at its heart. And you will get practical tools to help individuals and teams feel seen, heard, and supported through change.

What to expect

In this course you will use the Emotional Culture Deck, a deck of cards which sparks meaningful, face-to-face conversations about what drives individuals and teams.

You will also use carefully designed Canvases, Handbooks and Conversation Guides that help transform how people work together. You will learn, through experiencing a range of tools and resources, how this enables individuals and teams to use a different lens to understand and shape culture, leading to emotional drivers being uncovered, surfacing what is unspoken, and building self-awareness, empathy and alignment across teams.

You will also have the opportunity to share ideas and experiences with others who are experiencing similar opportunities and challenges, both during and after the course.

Photo credit: Riders & Elephants

Outline of the course

Part 1: Leading Self - Use tools for individuals to reflect on past periods of change and create a personal plan for navigating current or upcoming changes. Identify how to support others in their personal change journey.

Part 2: Leading People - Learn how to support others to define desired and undesired emotions during change and identify leadership behaviours and actions to support teams. Engage in group activities to develop emotional strategies for leading people through change.

Part 3: Leading Teams - Develop skills to facilitate team workshops focused on co-creating a culture through change. Learn to create and implement change rituals that bring people together, fostering a supportive and emotionally connected team environment.

Part 4: Reflect and Review - Reflect on key learnings from the course and identify how to apply these tools in real-life situations. Leave with a plan to continue your learning journey and enable change with others.

Part 5: Follow Up Group Coaching Call - Join a follow up group coaching call online via Zoom 8 weeks after the one day course to continue your learning.

What is included in this course

Full day experiential and participatory certification training course
Certificate in Emotional Change Leadership from Riders & Elephants
Emotional Culture Deck (physical card deck)
ECD Emotional Change Toolkit (physical resources and access to digital resources)
Post-course experiments to put learning into practice
60-minute group coaching call c. 8 weeks after the course to support your learning
Opportunity to have free 90-day all access pass to the R&E Community
50% discount on future Emotional Culture Deck purchases

Refreshments will be provided during the training day. Please note that lunch is not provided. The venue has a Bistro - "Lovely food, amazing value, and great service! ... Definitely recommend and would come again!" (review of Bistro from the venue website) - or you are welcome to bring your own lunch.

Workshop from an 18-month Team Culture programme delivered to a client by Sonali Kumarakulasinghe in 2024-25

Support to help you apply what you’ve learned

This isn’t a one-off learning experience. It’s the start of something deeper. You will have the tools and support to keep growing, experimenting, and embedding your work in human-centred change. Here's what is included post-training day:

1:1 or Group Coaching Call (8 Weeks Later)

A follow-up one hour group coaching session via Zoom to help you reflect, troubleshoot, and get unstuck. Bring your real-world experiences, challenges, and questions.

Post-Course Invitation to Implement your Learning

Keep the momentum going with guidance on how to experiement with the tools and strategies that you have learnt. You are invited to take small, powerful actions that suit your context, to deepen your learning and shift behaviours.

50% Discount on Future Decks

You get a substantial discount on all future purchases of physical Emotional Culture Decks to keep growing your toolkit.

90-Day Community Access

After completing the R&E course feedback form, you will be part of our global community for 90 days after the course with an all-access pass to a wealth of resources and conversations. Connect with other practitioners, join live calls, and get support when it matters most.

Who should attend?

This course has been carefully designed for in-house change leaders and external change partners who are committed to enabling meaningful and sustainable shifts in workplace culture. It is particularly ideal for:

Senior leaders and Executives
Managers, Team Leaders and Project Leaders
Change Management specialists
Human Resources and Learning and Development professionals
Leadership coaches, Facilitators and Consultants
and anyone interested in human-centred change at work

About Riders and Elephants

Riders and Elephants are the creators of the Emotional Culture Deck, developed by the Founder, Jeremy Dean. The Deck is used by over 500,000 people in 70+ countries and by some of the biggest (and smallest) organisations around the world.

This Emotional Change Stategy Certification Course is one of four specialist courses using the Emotional Culture Deck from Riders and Elephants (R&E), delivered by R&E and their Certified Consultants.

Meet your facilitator: Sonali Kumarakulasinghe

Sonali is a Riders and Elephants Certified Consultant based in Cambridge, U.K. She has delivered 40+ workshops and group sessions, and many coaching sessions, using the Emotional Culture Deck since 2022.

This has included supporting teams and organisations with 3-18 month culture programmes, working with leaders and managers to develop emotional leadership and agility, and delivering Emotional Culture Deck workshops to support teams to make faster progress on specific challenges.

In her courses and workshops, participants experience a range of tried and tested facilitation techniques that are designed for inclusion and engagement, which you can use and adapt in your own contexts when leading and facilitating change.

Creating Positive Change Together 2025 Conference, facilitated by Sonali Kumarakulasinghe for Apply Psychology. Photo credit: Clint Randall.

Sonali has delivered Emotional Culture workshops at national conferences including the International Association of Facilitators UK Conference, the UK Association of Solution Focused Practitioners Conference, the Happy Workplaces Conference, and at Agile on the Bench in the Agile Cambridge Conference.

Agile on the Bench at the Agile Cambridge Conference, October 2024. Photo credit: Emily Webber