Human-Centered Practices are the tools, skills, and practices that bring our humanity into the systems we live and work within, so we can work together across our differences. 

– These are practices for listening, holding different perspectives, co-creating equity, and pausing in the face of a difficult emotion. 

– These are practices that help us build humane and nurturing systems within our organizations and the bigger systems operating in our lives.

– Human-Centered Practices support us in being fully human and regarding other people’s humanity when we disagree, when we need help, when we don’t have the answer, when we’re in the discomfort of growing, adapting, and navigating change.

We need these practices more than ever to face our challenges with creativity and resilience. 

If you’ve worked with us, you know Human-Centered Practices. The tools and practices from Identity & Deep Listening, Power Dynamics & Co-Creating Equity in Relationships, and Exploring Emotion & Inner Agility remain the foundation for helping diverse teams collaborate across differences.

To give you and your team the training, tools, and materials needed to facilitate the practices throughout your organization, we created ANCHOR. This rigorous and deeply supportive certification program is for leaders and team members across industries and organizations, and for individual practitioners and facilitators.

With enhanced presentation skills and fully developed facilitation materials, certified facilitators are ready to train team members, leadership teams, departments, employee resource groups, onboarding employees, clients, and any group that wants to expand their capacity to collaborate with psychological safety, high standards, and vulnerability that inspires trust. 

At every step of the certification process, facilitators receive Leverage to Lead support through 1:1 meetings, access to a library of learning materials, and membership in a diverse Facilitators’ Community of Practice for the duration of their certification.

For facilitators who lead workshops on personal growth, professional development, or DEIB, ANCHOR Certification is professional development based on the science of adult learning that enhances your learning materials, transforms your facilitation, and helps you grow your business.

The ANCHOR certification program offers tools and practices in listening, sharing your identity, collaborating across differences, holding your power responsibly, and cultivating the inner agility to return to your humanity–all essential for practitioners leading others through transformative work and caring for themselves all the while.

An ANCHOR-certified facilitator has:

– Experienced and reflected deeply on Human-Centered Practices

– Received training, guided preparation, and facilitation practice

– Access to a library of resources

– Membership in a diverse and compassionate community of fellow practitioners–independent and within organizations.

– Meeting structures that set high standards, build psychological safety, and create space for vulnerability that builds trust

– A deep understanding of how their identity and unique story enrich their approach

– The capacity to hold their power as facilitators responsibly and with compassion

– The ability to care for themselves in the face of emotions that inevitably arise during facilitation

Certifying your leaders and team members as ANCHOR facilitators will allow them to lead and train others within your organization in Human-Centered Practices.

With enhanced presentation skills and fully developed facilitation materials, certified facilitators are ready to train team members, leadership teams, departments, employee resource groups, onboarding employees, clients, and any group that wants to expand their capacity to collaborate with psychological safety, high standards, and vulnerability that inspires trust. 

Your internal facilitators can bring these essential relationship-building skills and tools to teams, departments, C-suites, boards, onboarding employees, and more. And they can do it on your schedule and using your preferred meeting location or platform, all while holding your organization’s institutional and cultural knowledge.

Certifying facilitators also increases the number of Human-Centered Practices workshops you can hold within a shorter period. For comparison, a Leverage to Lead facilitator can train 25 people at a time, while 8 Certified Facilitators in your organization can train 200 people at a time.

Team Benefits:

– Stronger relationships.

– Enhanced connection between individuals and across teams.

– A deeper sense of belonging with others.

– Tools and practices to build human-centered systems and structures that support all employees.

– Personal and professional growth in emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills.

– Increased capacity to normalize and work through discomfort.

– Establishing a shared vocabulary to surface multiple perspectives

– Greater ability to collaborate across differences.

– Lasting personal and organizational change through relationships and responsibility.

Experience

Attend virtual training sessions with a Leverage to Lead instructor and fully experience the Human-Centered Practices workshop as a participant.

Reflect

Process your experience with the material with your instructor, reflecting on the topics, your feelings, any challenges, and questions. Dig into your “why” in bringing Human-Centered Practices to others.

Practice

Your instructor prepares you to facilitate by walking through program materials, sharing structural and content choices, and creating space for you to include personal stories that will illuminate the content for your participants and explore your identity as a facilitator. Plan to facilitate a short portion of the learning block for fellow participants during our Facilitators’ Community of Practice.

Implement

Begin to address the moments that are more challenging to plan for. A solid plan and preparation are critical, and the unexpected will inevitably pop up. We consider your individual or organizational context in order to make decisions about the plan that will best support the group with whom they will facilitate.

1-2-hour virtual training sessions are held bi-weekly from September through March, on Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. PDT / 11:00 a.m. MDT / 12:00 p.m. CDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT

1-hour Facilitators Community of Practice virtual gatherings are held on Wednesdays in October, December, and February. These meetings provide community, support, and perspective from multiple cohorts, with facilitators who are certified and those in-training.

 1-hour virtual Individual Processing Sessions are scheduled with your trainer during each level, providing space for your questions, needs, and feedback.

Level 1: Identity & Deep Listening

• Session 1: September 5
• Session 2: September 19
• Session 3: October 3
• Facilitators Community of Practice: October 9
• Session 4: October 17

Level 2: Power Dynamics & Co-Creating Equity in Relationships

• Session 1: October 31
• Session 2: November 14
• Session 3: December 5
• Facilitators Community of Practice: December 11
• Session 4: December 19

Level 3: Exploring Emotion & Inner Agility (Parts 1 and 2)

• Session 1: January 9
• Session 2: January 23
• Session 3: February 6
• Session 4: February 20
• Facilitators Community of Practice: February 26
• Session 5: March 6

We are committed to supporting DEI professionals who are experiencing a slowdown in their client work due to the re-entrenchment of structural racism, as seen in the Supreme Court ruling against Affirmative Action, book bans across our schools, bans on AP African American Studies, the terms “critical race theory” and “DEI hire” hurled at programs invested in DEIB and people with marginalized identities, and many other harmful attacks and refusals to engage.

At Leverage to Lead, we’re feeling the impact on our business and seeing it in others. We believe ANCHOR certification offers a way for facilitators whose work is grounded in the principles of equity and inclusion to carry forward their DEI work with new tools, practices, and materials.

While ANCHOR is not limited to independent DEI practitioners, our program pricing is structured to support them at this time. The program pricing is our response to the backlash against DEI and the inequities behind it. 

 Equity Pricing

The actual cost of the program is $20,000 per participant.

However, we are offering the program at the subsidized rate of $6,000 per participant. This price is for the first 16 participants who enroll.

We need to center our humanity now more than ever.

Our subsidized program rate is our commitment to facilitators and bringing more Human-Centered Practices to more people, and fuels our mission to create the future of equitable work.

We are inviting organizations to sponsor an independent facilitator’s program fee to expand access to enhancing their skills and expanding their ability to work.

Single Sponsorship: $6,000. Covers the program cost for one independent facilitator.

Full Sponsorship: $20,000. Covers the program cost for three independent facilitators AND two $1,000 discounts.

Click here to Register & Sponsor

If you’re curious about the program, join us for a free, virtual program preview!

We’ll update you on our next scheduled preview. Click below to subscribe to our newsletter and be the first to know when you can join.

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How It Started

ANCHOR was born because a client at Google experienced our Human-Centered Practices and was eager for her teams to experience them as well, knowing it would enhance connection and belonging, deepen relationships, collaborate across differences, and have the tools and practices needed to build human-centered systems and structures.

Leverage to Lead began training one group at a time, a pace that would take our small team years to reach every employee. Then, our client asked us to train her and her team to become facilitators of our Human-Centered Practices.

By training and preparing adept facilitators, ANCHOR is an organization’s key to making expert trainers and Human-Centered Practices essential to the culture.

How It’s Going

Today, ANCHOR certification is for leaders and team members across industries and organizations, as well as for individual practitioners and facilitators.

We’re so proud of our first cohort and our entire community of facilitators who are transforming their teams, their clients, and themselves with exceptional Human-Centered Practices trainings.