The non-profit arm of Education Leaders

What if everything your school needed was right in front of you?

Work Collaborative is the non-profit, open-source side of what we do. The Education Leaders Academy is where you'd come for a paid programme. Work Collaborative is where the research lives, the library is free, and the wider movement for inside-out change is built.

Why it exists

Restoring confidence to educational communities.

Work Collaborative exists to restore organisational confidence in educational communities by empowering them to lead sustainable change from within. Not through imposing another external model, but by helping communities recognise and amplify the expertise they already possess.

It started with a book, Change Starts Here by Shane Leaning and Efraim Lerner (Routledge, 2025), and grew into a movement. Forty questions. An adapted Double Diamond framework. A free library. A live forum. A foundation course in resonant change.

How it's organised

Three rings. Flow always from the centre out.

Every part of Work Collaborative is structured so the core mission protects itself. Research drives education. Education informs systems. Never the reverse.

Systems & support
Education
Research
& advocacy

1. Research & advocacy

The heartbeat. Investigating how educational communities can lead organisational change effectively. Synthesising scattered evidence into compelling arguments. Campaigning for communities to reclaim the narrative about their own contexts.

2. Education

Resources that help communities build capability for leading their own change. Courses, coaching programmes, implementation guides, and the Foundation Certificate in Resonant Change.

3. Systems & support

The outer ring. Tools, platforms and infrastructure that support community-led change. Open source by default, so anyone can build on it.

The method

An adapted Double Diamond, made more human for schools.

Work Collaborative builds on the British Design Council's Double Diamond, adapted for educational settings. Eight stages, guided by the 40 questions detailed in Change Starts Here, that move a community from someone's perceived challenge to a solution the whole community owns and sustains.

Diamond 1 · Understanding together

  • Connect · build (or rebuild) trust
  • Discover · what's really happening, from multiple perspectives
  • Define · what matters most, through shared vision
  • Align · everyone heard, clear on the challenge, committed to move

Diamond 2 · Acting together

  • Develop · possibilities and options
  • Learn · what you need to know to choose well
  • Deliver · what makes sense for this specific context
  • Sustain · so the change actually lasts
The wisdom for creating meaningful change already exists within our communities. Our job isn't to bring expertise in. It's to help schools recognise the expertise they already have.
Work Collaborative mission · March 2026
What's there

Four things, all open or low-friction.

How the two sit together

Education Leaders is the studio. Work Collaborative is the lab.

Both share the same belief: the expertise is already in the building. They do different jobs.

Education Leaders

The podcast, the Academy, the Circles, this site. Paid programmes for school leaders who want a structured cohort experience or a self-study certificate. Hosted by Shane Leaning.

Visit the Academy →

Work Collaborative

The non-profit research and advocacy organisation co-founded by Shane and Efraim. Open-source frameworks, the live forum, the foundation course. For practitioners who want to take the Double Diamond into their own school.

Visit workcollaborative.com →

Get the full thing

Everything lives at workcollaborative.com.

This page is just the introduction. The library, the forum, the course, the book — all sit on Work Collaborative's own site. Open to anyone, free to adapt.