Something special happens when Elephant Riders gather in person.

Stories get shared. Cards get played. And conversations that rarely happen in workplaces—finally do.

We’re kicking off the second half of 2025 with a packed calendar of Local Elephant Rider Chapter Meetups across Aotearoa, Australia, and beyond. These events are hosted by our incredible community of volunteer Chapter Leads in cities around the world. They create space for connection, shared learning, and growing the movement to humanise work—one conversation at a time.

Some highlights from our Q2 Meetups

What are Chapter Meetups all about?

Our Chapter Meetups are 90-minute in-person gatherings created for the Elephant Rider community. They’re a chance to reconnect with the tools and each other, hear Bright Spot stories, and explore how emotional culture is showing up in the real world.

Here’s what to expect:

• We play with The Emotional Culture Deck (always!)

• We explore real workplace challenges and emotio

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One system. Four specialities. Three certification levels. Six recognition tiers. 

When we first launched The Emotional Culture Deck, it wasn’t a system. It was a tool. Something simple, practical, and human that helped people talk about how they feel at work.

But over time, something bigger happened.

People kept using it. Not just once, but again and again. They built rituals around it. They used it to design culture. To lead teams. To navigate change. To connect with customers. They turned it into a system.

So we’ve caught up with what our community has already been doing.

Today, we’re proud to introduce our new ECD Certified Pathways. A structured, flexible way to grow your emotional culture practice.

Why we made this change

Most culture, leadership and change programmes ignore emotion. Ours don't.

But until now, our certifications didn’t fully reflect the depth or diversity of the work our community was doing.

We’ve reimagined the certification structure from the grou...

Why We’re Shifting the Language

When I first launched The Emotional Culture Deck back in 2017, I called it a tool. A game, even. Something that helped people discuss their feelings at work in a way that felt human, not forced.

And it worked. The simplicity of the deck helped teams open up. It got leaders listening. It made emotion a safe thing to talk about.

But over the years, something bigger happened.

People started using it again. And again. They built rituals around it. They used it to design culture. To lead teams. To manage change. To reshape stakeholder experiences.

They weren’t just playing a game. They were working a system.

Why It Matters Now

The more this work has spread, the clearer the pattern became.

The people creating real, lasting impact weren’t just using the deck as a one-off tool. They were using it to embed new ways of relating, leading, and designing how people feel at work.

The Emotional Culture Deck has gone beyond a deck of cards. It's still at the ...

When Krisrian Colegate first picked up The Emotional Culture Deck, he wasn’t joining a culture initiative he was starting one.

As General Manager at a 17-site manufacturing and construction business, Christian has spent the past two years quietly embedding emotional culture into the everyday fabric of his organisation. From toolbox talks and safety rituals to leadership development and change management, he’s led one of the most powerful and sustained ECD journeys we’ve seen.

In this video, you’ll hear highlights from Kristian's story of how he used The ECD in a male-dominated industry, and what’s shifted across leadership, performance, and safety. 

Before we even dive into Kristian’s story, here’s what changed:

• 🔻 40% reduction in lost time injuries

• 🔺 Higher team engagement where leaders talk about emotion

• 🔻 Lower turnover in branches using The ECD

• 🔺 Improved safety reporting

• 📊 Emotional culture now tracked across 360s, retention, and leadership assessmen

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Let’s be honest. Most organisational values don’t work.

They’re often written in boardrooms, crafted from generic words, and disconnected from how people actually feel at work. Too often, values are cognitive and conceptual. Designed from the head, not the heart. And when that happens, they fail to move people. They become wallpaper.

At R&E, we’ve always believed that emotions sit at the heart of performance, connection, and culture. So we decided to flip the traditional model on its head.

Instead of starting with values and hoping people behave in ways that bring them to life, we begin with how we want people to feel.

That’s where the Emotional Values Design method was born.

Why Emotions First? 

We created this method because we saw a missing link: the emotional thread that connects employee experience and stakeholder experience. If you want people to feel something when they engage with your organisation, your people have to feel it first.

Inspired by leaders like Mel Howe a...

A new study from Nigeria’s Benson Idahosa University shows that leaders who stay emotionally connected during crises build trust, ease anxiety, and help people move forward together.

The Big Idea: Emotion is Contagious

Emotions ripple through organisations. Leaders don’t just manage plans, they shape the emotional climate. Calm, care, and confidence spread just as easily as fear, frustration, or doubt.

“Leaders who stay emotionally connected are better equipped to manage their own feelings and influence the emotional tone of their teams and stakeholders.” — Achilike & Nwaoboli, 2024 

5 Key Emotional Insights for Connected Leadership

1. Stakeholders feel deeply during crises, and those emotions shape outcomes

In a crisis, people feel first and think second. Stakeholders often experience fear, uncertainty, or frustration. If these feelings are ignored, trust can break down. If they’re acknowledged, trust deepens.

“Unresolved emotions can lead to conflicts, complicating the o...

What does it take to create an unforgettable customer experience? 

For BurgerFuel, it wasn’t just about great food—it was about how customers feel the moment they step into a store. Leading this transformation was ECD Practitioner Mel Howell, who designed and delivered the largest-ever hybrid project for the Customer Experience & Emotional Culture Deck in the world.

In 2020, Mel launched a game-changing customer and employee experience programme across 50+ BurgerFuel stores in New Zealand. Her approach blended The Emotional Culture Deck with the Customer Experience Deck, helping store leaders design unique in-store cultures that drive customer engagement, employee satisfaction, and business success. 

The Challenge: Creating Consistent Yet Unique Customer Experiences 

Post-COVID, BurgerFuel recognised that customer experience would be the key differentiator in a competitive hospitality market. But how do you create a customer experience that feels authentic, not scripted? And how do...

A couple of weeks ago, we had the honour of sitting down with Dr James Gross as part of our Emotions At Work Learning Series. For those who may not know, Dr Gross is one of the most recognised and influential emotion scientists of our time. His work has shaped how people across psychology, leadership, education and culture understand and work with emotions.

It was one of those conversations that lingers long after it ends. We left feeling grateful, curious, and more convinced than ever that emotional work is the real work. Below are some of the ideas that stood out most, and why they matter for anyone who wants to lead, relate or build culture with intention.

Who is Professor James Gross?

Dr Gross is a professor at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Psychophysiology Lab. He’s most widely known for developing the Process Model of Emotion Regulation. This framework breaks down the different ways we can regulate our emotions. Not just by controlling our reactions, but b...

Why it’s time to flip the script on how we lead change, and how to start.

When most organisations face change, they respond with strategy.
Plans. Timelines. Frameworks. Comms packs.

But very few ask the more human questions:

• How do we want our people to feel during this change?

• What emotions might get in the way?

• How can we shape the emotional culture so change sticks?

We’ve been taught that leading change is about logic, planning, and managing resistance.
But change doesn’t start in the mind. It starts in the heart.

Here’s the truth

Emotions Matter More Than Models.
You can’t lead change if you ignore emotion. 

It’s not a soft skill. It’s the essential skill.

We built the Emotional Change Strategy Course because we saw a gap.
Leaders everywhere were asking how to make change less painful, more honest, and more human.

They didn’t need another model.
They needed the language and tools to lead emotionally. Not just tactically.

What the Course Teaches You

This ...

How one team used The ECD to lead people through change, and what it means for every leader.

When organisations face big change, the default response is usually strategic.

Plans. Timelines. Communications frameworks.

But one bold team in a major New Zealand government agency tried something different.

They made emotion the centre of their change strategy. Not a side note.

In partnership with riders&elephants and Professor Michael Parke from Wharton Business School, this team used The Emotional Culture Deck Change Programme to support a team within a 4,000-person organisation through a high-stakes consultation.

The results speak for themselves:

•  +7.3% increase in engagement
• +10.3% stronger emotional support from leaders
• +20.7% improvement in emotional awareness
• 94% of employees felt their leader promoted wellbeing
• 0 reports of burnout

They didn’t follow a traditional change playbook. They flipped it.

This white paper tells the story, and why emotional culture is now ess...