We often get asked if The ECD can be used solo, especially by people who want to explore emotions for personal growth before facilitating with others. The short answer? Absolutely! Using The ECD for personal reflection is a powerful way to develop self-awareness, gain clarity, and navigate life’s emotional challenges.

Recently, we received a thoughtful question from Steph, an ECD enthusiast, asking if the cards are applicable for individual use. Since many others may be wondering the same thing, we decided to share some insights on how you can use the deck for your own self-discovery journey.

Yes, You Can Use The ECD Solo!

While The ECD is often used in teams or groups, it’s equally valuable for individuals who want to better understand their emotional landscape. Many people find that working with the deck on their own helps them identify emotional patterns, reflect on their experiences, and gain deeper insights into how emotions influence their decisions and behaviours. 

Learn fro...

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 more than 300 employees across seven fact...

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 way in rehumanising the ...

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 Design, and experienced first hand how vast the ECD universe is, discovering that it’s so much more th...

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 kicked off our first pilot study earlier this month. We feel optimistic that this is just the first of num...

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 employee connections.
• ECD Leadersh...

- 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 loved le...

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 take my sessions one at a time with p...

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 teams’ success. I knew that would include something to ...