How The Emotional Culture Deck Helped Sanitarium Navigate Growth and Change
When Chelsea Lang, Head of HR for Sanitarium’s Supply Chain, joined the company two and a half years ago, she faced a unique challenge. Sanitarium, known for its household brands like Weet-Bix and Up & Go, was undergoing unprecedented growth after 25 years of stability. This growth led to rapid changes—new product lines, a new distribution centre, and the recruitment of over 350 new employees, including 50 new leaders.
In the midst of this transformation, Chelsea turned to The Emotional Culture Deck to guide Sanitarium’s leaders and teams through the complex changes. Her approach was simple yet powerful: harness the emotional side of leadership to drive success. Chelsea focused on helping leaders move beyond the traditional “tell, tell, tell” approach and encouraged them to ask questions, listen actively, and coach their teams with empathy.
Since then, Chelsea has integrated The ECD into Sanitarium’s leadership and culture strategy, impacting...
Rehumanising Workplaces Through Emotion-Led Stakeholder Experiences
How your people feel directly impacts your customers’ experience. Your customers and stakeholders experience emotions through their interactions with you. If you’re not deliberate and strategic about the emotions you want to foster and intentional about managing and addressing the undesired emotions within your team, your stakeholders will inevitably feel the effects.
So yesterday in Wellington, we explored how we create these conversations, plans and strategies! We had the incredible privilege of hosting our first-ever ECD Emotional Stakeholder Engagement Course. I want to take a moment to celebrate these amazing, curious, and daring early adopters who took the leap and became the world’s first ECD Stakeholder Practitioners!
This group embodies the spirit of curiosity and courage in our community, diving into new ways of thinking about stakeholder and customer relationships and how emotions play a crucial role in shaping them. They are pioneers, leading the...
Welcome to our latest ECD Certified Consultant Course Cohort!
A big welcome to our latest cohort of ECD Certified Consultant Course participants! Over the past two weeks, these inspiring individuals have begun their journey to becoming global emotional culture leaders.
- Sarah Dena – England
- Claire McKie – Australia
- Safura Atan – Malaysia
- Rita Prates – Portugal
- Nike Lawal – England
- Siobhan Barnes – Hong Kong
- Robyn Mather – United States
- Marie-Claire Mclachlan – South Africa
- Amie Myrick – United States
- Sonali Kumarakulasinghe – England
- Daniel Corsen – Curaçao
- Silvina Layani – Switzerland
Yesterday, we completed their ECD Consultant Intensives, the first part of three over their nine-month journey to become ECD Certified Consultants. Over these past two weeks, these inspiring humans have dived deep into our core ECD Frameworks, Emotional Culture Crafting, Emotional Leadership Development, Emotional Change Strategy, Emotional Values...
From Play to Profound. The Science of Emotions at Work with Wharton.
Seriously scientific! We're at an inflexion point in the evolution of our community (and business). People who do serious science are seriously interested in our sanely simple game. So we're now bringing even more serious and comprehensive science to it.
On the surface, our game might not seem serious or even scientific. Even calling it a 'game' might lead people to believe that it's not serious. We're serious about it. We have over a thousand ECD Practitioners and Consultants around the planet who are serious about it. The impact of the tools and methodologies we use is serious. Now, other people who do serious science are also serious about what we're doing.
We feel ecstatic, proud, and humble to say we're partnering and collaborating with Michael Parke, Assistant Professor at Wharton Business School, to officially study the impact of affect labelling and The ECD at work. We...
ALL-New ECD Tools to Shape Emotional Culture at Work
Hello, everyone! We're thrilled to announce something we've been working on that we believe will make it easier for more people to revolutionise the way they approach emotional culture in workplaces: the launch of our ECD Digital Download Tools.
Why We Created These ECD Tools for Download
In today's fast-paced world, the way we work is evolving rapidly, and so is the way we interact with each other. Over the past two years, we've seen the need for tools that make it easier for individuals and teams to navigate the emotional aspects of work life. That's why we created our ECD Digital Tools Collections.
Introducing the Collections:
You can buy just one tool if that’s all you need, or get a bundle if you want a set that works well together. Bundles are cheaper than buying the tools separately:
- ECD Culture Crafting Collection: Dive into the heart of your team’s culture with resources designed for emotional culture exploration and stronger team and...
The ECD's Role in Uniting a New Healthcare Team
When a new team comes together in healthcare, it's a bit like ducks landing on a pond – all at once, a bit messy, and everyone trying to find their space. That's precisely what happened with a small group of healthcare professionals who, despite being newly formed, needed to quickly gel and work effectively together. This blog post shares their experience using The Emotional Culture Deck to build connections, share stories, and develop a deeper understanding of each other.
Discovering the Power of ConnectionDuring their workshop, connection emerged as a vital theme. Every team member ranked it in their top five values, underscoring its importance in their day-to-day interactions and overall team cohesion. But what stood out wasn't just acknowledging connection as a key value; it was the process of exploring what it truly meant to each person. Team members explored how they experience connection, why it matters in their roles, and what can happen when it's missing....
A Game-Changer for Workplaces: How The Emotional Culture Deck Opened My Eyes
- This blog is written in the words of one of our latest Masterclass Graduates.
Ever thought about how much our feelings affect our workdays? Well, after joining The Emotional Culture Deck Masterclass, I've started to see things differently. Here’s a peek into what I learned and why it feels like a game-changer for anyone, especially if you’re into making your workplace a better place.
Real Talk About Our Feelings
"The biggest takeaway for me was learning about how our own emotional state can impact our interactions with others." This hit home for me. It's all about knowing what we're feeling and managing those vibes so we can get along better with the folks we work with.
Making Work Feel Safer
Hearing about "creating an emotionally safe workplace" was a lightbulb moment. We've all been in spots where sharing how we really feel can be scary. Making a place where everyone can speak up about their feelings without worry? That's the dream.
We're All in This Together
What I...
Be the facilitator you always wanted to be
Bringing out your inner facilitator
People often tell us that facilitating scares them. They’re worried about controlling a room of people, or ensuring that those people get real value from their sessions.
The good news is that great facilitation is something many of us can learn. And the Online Masterclass Course is a great way to focus your facilitation skills to get the most out of the Deck for everyone involved.
Why it works – in their words
We get tons of feedback from people who’ve done the Online Masterclass Course about how it has helped them. If you’re wondering whether you’re going to get everything you need, please take a few minutes to read a small sampling of the comments we’ve received:
"I think at the beginning, I was having doubts and was anxious on how effective I would be, especially for my first sessions. The Course though emphasised practice and routine, and patience in failure in order to improve so, with that, I will just...
Unleashing The Emotional Culture Deck: With Teams Facing Change
by Joanne Free-Pameli reposted from LinkedIn >
It was sometime during August of 2020 when I first encountered riders&elephants and completed the available ECD Online Masterclass. I was hooked.
As a Change Management practitioner for more than a decade by then; I was keen to find tools to help Change Leaders and their teams improve their alignment, collaboration, and the change ready culture within which they worked.
The Change Transformation program priorities I’d seen, time and time again were frequently on the project plan, scope, timeline, and budget with far less focus on how the project and change teams including leadership were functioning during the change programs delivery and, how the changed-future state was then transitioned to the “business as usual” team. It was often project, cost, timeline and whoever is part of it- just get it done.
I needed something that would help me build the essential recipe for any change...
Transformative Insights: The Five Most Powerful Lessons from My Emotional Culture Journey – By Cathy Shepherd
Originally posted on LinkedIn here >>
Over the last six months I've been on a journey to become a Pro-Elephant Rider using the Emotional Culture Deck from riders&elephants. Working with Jeremy Dean with a select group of 11 others has been amazing. We've done a deep dive into using the Emotional Culture Deck cards in so many situations.
For those that don't know about the Emotional Culture Deck (the ECD), they are a set of cards, black and white, with 47 positive feeling cards, and 38 negative or more uncomfortable feeling cards on them. They can be used in so many ways - with individuals and teams - helping people to discover the incredible power of knowing and using emotions in workplaces. The ECD has a range of tools - handbooks and canvases developed to use with it, and this journey has introduced me to them all.
It's been a great journey as amazing workplace cultures are so important to me. It's something I've valued for a long time and it's become my...
