- Name the move. What is ending, what is beginning, and what feelings come with both.
- Arrive on purpose. Decide the first impression the leader wants to make, in feelings rather than tasks.
- There is a digital version the leader can use on their own.
A six-month programme that guides a leader through the first 180 days of leading a team they have just taken over. It starts with the leader, moves to the people, and ends with a team that has its own rhythm. Built around the habits that make leadership stick.
One QR code, eighteen short questions, anonymous. Each checkpoint gives the leader an Impact Report on what has improved for their people.
Taking over a team is one of the most exposed moments in a leader’s working life. The team is watching, wondering what will change and whether it is safe to say what they think. The leader is busy proving they can do the job. In the gap between the two, the emotional culture forms on its own.
This programme closes that gap on purpose. The leader starts by getting clear on how they need to feel to do their best work, and how they want their people to feel in their presence. Then they bring the team in, one conversation at a time, until the rituals belong to everyone.
Three phases over six months, with one weekly heartbeat running underneath all of them.
Before and just after the role begins. The leader gets clear on how they need to feel and not feel to be successful, and how they want their people to feel in their presence.
Weekly retros start, alongside 1:1s with each team member. Then the team sets its intentions together, and Week 12 brings the first team workshop.
The team designs the rituals that will hold its culture, and at Week 24 looks back together at what mattered and what it carries forward.
Each step is short and sits inside the work the leader is already doing. Open any week to see what happens.
The leader works through the ECD Transitions Handbook to make sense of the move: what they are leaving, what they are walking into, and how they want to arrive.
Self · Transitions HandbookWith the Know Yourself Handbook, the leader answers one question: how do I need to feel, and not feel, to be successful in this role?
Self · Know Yourself HandbookWith the Leadership Handbook, the leader turns outward: how do I want my people to feel in my presence, and what will they see me do that makes it true?
Self · Leadership HandbookThe team starts a short weekly retro inside a meeting it already has. Alongside, the leader holds a 1:1 with each team member using the Know Yourself questions, so they learn how each person does their best work.
People & Team · Weekly Retro + 1:1sThe team answers the F18 Survey for the first time. It gives the leader an early read on what is already moving for their people.
F18 Survey · About two minutesThe weekly rhythm grows into Team Weekly Intention Setting. Each week the team agrees how it wants to feel, and one thing it will do to make that real.
People & Team · Intention Setting GuideThe milestone. A facilitated ECD workshop with the whole team: Map Your Emotional Culture, or Exploring Team Change if the team is moving through change. The Reflect & Review Handbook helps the team look back on the first three months. Then the second F18 Survey.
Facilitated · Whole team · F18 SurveyWith the Team ECD Rituals Design Canvas, the team designs the rituals that will hold its culture once the programme ends. Then the third F18 Survey.
Collective · Rituals Design Canvas · F18 SurveySix months on. With the Reflect & Review Canvas and all four Impact Reports on the table, the team looks back at what mattered and decides what it carries forward. The final F18 Survey closes the programme.
Collective · Reflect & Review Canvas · F18 SurveyThe F18 Survey was developed alongside academic research with Professor Michael Parke at the Wharton School. It does not measure how people feel on the day. It measures what has improved because of the conversations the team is having.
Every checkpoint produces an Impact Report: the share of the team reporting improvement on each measure. Anonymous, simple to read, and ready to share with the leader’s own manager or sponsor.
The Transitions, Know Yourself and Leadership Handbooks, worked through with an ECD Certified Partner.
The Weekly Retro and Intention Setting guides, designed to slot into a meeting the team already has.
A facilitated Map Your Emotional Culture or Exploring Team Change workshop for the whole team.
The Rituals Design Canvas at Week 16 and the Reflect & Review Canvas at Week 24.
The F18 Survey at Weeks 6, 12, 16 and 24, with an Impact Report each time.
The Emotional Culture Deck and every handbook, canvas and guide the programme uses.
The programme is delivered by partners who have completed the ECD Certified Consultant Development Programme and have been through the peer review that lets them take it to a leader and their team.
Browse the directory, or ask us to make an introduction.
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Before the role begins, if you can. Week 0 is designed for the days between accepting the role and walking in.
Yes. We adapt the programme to suit you, and to where you are in your role and in your team’s life. What you see here is a guide to what it looks like from start to finish, but we know real life brings situations and obstacles every day, and we design for them and take them into account. It is all possible. Every choice comes with trade-offs, pros and cons, and we will talk them through with you.
Phase 1 is a few hours of reflection with a handbook. After that, a short weekly check-in inside a meeting the team already has, plus 1:1s you would hold anyway. The bigger moments are the Week 12 workshop, Week 16 rituals and the Week 24 review.
No. It is built for any leader taking over a team they did not build, whether it is their first team or their tenth.
Yes. The shape stays, self then people then collective, with the weekly heartbeat and the four checkpoints. Your Certified Partner will weave in the tools and methods that fit your team.
Each checkpoint shows the share of the team reporting improvement on each F18 measure. See how it works on the Emotional Evidence Platform.