Become a Certified Emotional Stakeholder Engagement Practitioner

Course Video: https://youtu.be/cJ0BVcG-JPA

Experience and learn practical research-informed strategies and tools for emotionally intelligent stakeholder relationships that you can implement straight away after this Course.

Course Focus: Identify and embed human-centred stakeholder relationship and partnership strategies.

Approach: Co-created and relational.

Benefits: Improve stakeholder experiences, build communication and trust, and enhance collaboration.

Why Emotional Stakeholder Engagement matters

Emotions are always present in our stakeholder relationships and partnerships. Stakeholder engagement strategies that include emotions can lead to stronger relationships, greater trust and enhanced collaboration. However, the emotional impact of these relationships is often overlooked or underestimated.

"How do stakeholders feel when they first engage with us?" "How does this come to life at every touchpoint?" "What behaviours and actions would support desired emotions?" These questions, and others that inform an effective stakeholder engagement strategy are often not asked.

Whether your stakeholders are customers, clients, partners, funders, volunteers or internal teams, this course gives you the tools to create connection, trust and collaboration so that your stakeholder relationships are impactful and human-centred.

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 effective working relationships.

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 us to use a different lens to understand and shape stakeholder relationships, leading to emotional drivers being uncovered, surfacing what is unspoken, and building self-awareness, empathy and alignment.

Photo credit: Riders & Elephants

Outline of the course

Part 1: Design Emotion-Led Stakeholder Relationships - Learn how to identify and define the desired emotions in stakeholder relationships and how to manage undesired emotions that may arise.

Part 2: Connect Customer and Employee Experiences - Explore the interplay between employee and stakeholder experiences and design emotional values that align both for enhanced engagement and performance.

Part 3: Build Human-Centred Partnerships - Develop strategies for fostering human-centred partnerships by identifying key emotions that drive effective collaboration and mutual success.

Part 4: Reflect and Review - Reflect on learnings, share insights and identify how to apply these concepts to improve stakeholder engagement and partnerships.

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 Stakeholder Engagement from Riders & Elephants
Emotional Culture Deck (physical card deck)
ECD Stakeholder Engagement 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's website) or you are welcome to bring your own lunch.

Workshop from an 18-month Team Culture programme delivered to a client by Sonali 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 leadership. 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 approaches 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 leaders, managers and external partners who are committed to enabling meaningful and sustainable shifts in stakeholder relationships and partnerships. It is particularly ideal for:

Senior leaders and Executives
Managers, Team Leaders and Team Members
Project Managers
Customer Experience (CX) Leaders and Teams
Community Builders
Human Resources and Learning and Development professionals
Coaches, Facilitators and Consultants
and anyone interested in human-centred working relationships

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 Leadership Development 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 facilitating employee and stakeholder experiences.

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

Sonali has delivered Emotional Culture workshops at national conferences including the International Association of Facilitators UK Conference (IAF UK, 2024 and 2025), the UK Association of Solution Focused Practitioners Conference (UKASFP, 2024), the Happy Workplaces Conference (2025), and at Agile on the Bench during the Agile Cambridge Conference (2024 and 2025).

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