National Commissioning Academy applications are open: November 2026 to May 2027View dates and fees

Programmes

Leading Transformation

Develop and apply your transformation practice through the revised 2026 curriculum, with 24 modules across five perspectives.

A substantial, practice-based programme for people who need to understand, lead, and sustain transformation.

Who it is for

Public-service leaders, managers, commissioners, transformation teams, and practitioners who want a wider repertoire and better judgement about when and how to use it.

How the learning works

Bring a live transformation challenge into the programme. Use teaching, rehearsal, reflection, and application to connect the repertoire with decisions and work in your organisation. Live practice starts in module 3 and service prototyping in module 12. The final simulation requires a substantial delivery block and leads into a hundred-day plan.

The Five Core Practices recur throughout. The Four Dynamics are introduced in module 4 and applied fully to organisation design in module 18. Optional depth includes Seven Ways, Resource Optimisation, Patterns of Strategy, behavioural insight, Positive Deviance, Appreciative Inquiry, lean and operational tools, commissioning, and Breaking the Shell.

Bespoke programmes can combine supported study, facilitated discussion, webinars, action learning, coaching, and simulation. The 2026 curriculum develops the established programme. Ask about current materials and agree the mix, support, dates, and time commitment for your cohort before booking.

What participants work towards

  • A clearer account of the situation, its purpose, and whose experience matters.
  • Ways to understand demand, work, relationships, power, and organisational conditions.
  • A justified choice of methods and a practical test or intervention.
  • Delivery, learning, and a hundred-day plan tied to real work.

The 2026 learning route

The revised 24-module curriculum moves across five perspectives: leadership and political life, citizens, services, management, and learning and change. These perspectives connect throughout the programme.

  1. Transformation and the five worlds

    Leadership and political

    Read a live transformation challenge through leadership, citizens, services, management, and learning.

  2. Purpose, outcomes, and useful measures

    Leadership and political

    Agree purpose, distinguish outputs from outcomes, and choose measures that help people act.

  3. Your practice as a transformation agent

    Learning and change

    Contract for useful work, examine your own contribution, and start a live practice challenge.

  4. Power, responsibility, and distributed leadership

    Leadership and political

    Work with power, accountability, and distributed leadership; introduce the Four Dynamics.

  5. Honest, productive conversations

    Learning and change

    Practise listening, productive challenge, difficult conversations, and clear agreements.

  6. Systems inquiry, mapping, and method choice

    Learning and change

    Frame a useful inquiry, map different perspectives, and choose methods for the situation.

  7. Citizen insight and behaviour in context

    Citizen

    Gather citizen insight and examine behaviour in its social and practical context.

  8. Strengths, community, and co-production

    Citizen

    Work with strengths, community assets, co-production, and Positive Deviance.

  9. Demand, access, and prevention

    Service

    Understand demand, access, avoidable work, and opportunities for prevention.

  10. Relational public services

    Citizen

    Organise around people’s lives, relationships, and needs that cross service boundaries.

  11. Designing services and the work behind them

    Service

    Connect the citizen’s experience with service design, processes, and the work behind them.

  12. Prototyping and learning through action

    Learning and change

    Test service ideas through prototypes and small experiments, then use what happens to improve them.

  13. Lean, flow, and operational learning

    Service

    Apply lean, flow, A3 inquiry, and operational tools with respect for the people doing the work.

  14. Resource Optimisation and choices about work

    Management

    Make effort and capacity visible, and use Resource Optimisation and Seven Ways to examine choices.

  15. Costs, benefits, and business cases

    Management

    Connect activity, costs, benefits, and options in a defensible business case.

  16. Digital, data, and AI judgement

    Service

    Judge digital, data, and AI proposals against service purpose, evidence, and human responsibility.

  17. Understanding and designing viable organisations

    Management

    Use the Viable System Model to examine autonomy, coordination, and organisational viability.

  18. The Four Dynamics, roles, and organisation design

    Management

    Apply the Four Dynamics to roles, relationships, authority, and organisation design.

  19. Culture, change, and meeting the other

    Management

    Work with culture, assumptions, identity, and encounters with people who see things differently.

  20. Convening across communities and organisations

    Citizen

    Build the relationships and conditions for action across communities and organisations.

  21. Strategy, commissioning, and choices about provision

    Leadership and political

    Use Patterns of Strategy, commissioning, and provision choices to connect intent with action.

  22. Facilitating groups and designing interventions

    Learning and change

    Choose and facilitate group processes, and design interventions that fit their setting.

  23. Delivering, embedding, and evaluating change

    Learning and change

    Plan delivery, use Appreciative Inquiry and Breaking the Shell, and evaluate and embed change.

  24. Integration, simulation, and the next hundred days

    Learning and change

    Bring the repertoire together through simulation and a substantial hundred-day follow-through.

Choose a route

Leading Transformation: core online learning with the agreed facilitated support, as an individual learning route or a bespoke organisational programme.

The RedQuadrant Tool Shed: a small practitioner cohort bringing the content into live consulting, facilitation, and change work through peer inquiry, co-coaching, and mentoring.

Fees and accreditation

Leading Transformation modules: £295 plus VAT per person for a three- or four-module learning package. Each package includes a one-to-one support session with Benjamin Taylor, email support, and online questions and answers. A full organisational programme combines the modules and facilitated support to suit your team.

The RedQuadrant Tool Shed: £495 per month plus VAT per person. Join a small practitioner cohort for live practice, peer inquiry, co-coaching, and mentoring.

Leading Transformation and the Tool Shed are accredited by the Public Service Transformation Academy.

Ask Benjamin about Leading Transformation

The RedQuadrant Tool Shed practitioner cohort · Benjamin’s Tool Shed and mentoring

Join the programme

Tell us who needs to take part, the live issue they are working on, and your intended timing. We will agree the design, faculty, commitment, and fee before booking.

Email David Mason