The In-Person Certificate Workshop

For teams

Seven pillars. Your whole team in one room. A credential they earn there.

The facilitated version of Firm Foundations — worked in order, with an outside voice holding the structure so the leader can participate instead of running it.

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You could run this yourself. There is one reason not to.

The workbook exists so a team can work the pillars on its own, and plenty do. But every exercise in it asks the same thing of one person first: the leader answers before anyone else does, out loud, in front of the team. That is not a stylistic choice. It is the mechanism. Willingness travels in one direction, and a room reads instantly whether the person at the front went first or went second.

A leader who is also facilitating cannot do that. They are managing the clock, deciding what comes next, watching who has not spoken, steering away from the thing that just got tense. They are working. And a team can tell the difference between a leader being honest and a leader running a session about honesty.

Someone else holds the structure so you can be in the room instead of in charge of it.

The shape of it

An afternoon, a dinner, and two full days

Day one
Afternoon
00
Where this team actually standsThe baseline scan across all seven pillars. Everyone scores independently before anyone says a number out loud — the gaps between people are worth more than the scores.
01
TrustThe five fears every person carries into work, the three forms of trust, and the four questions the leader answers first. This is the session that decides whether the rest of the program is real.
Then dinner, together

Not a nicety, and not networking. Trust has just been opened up and nobody is finished talking about it. More gets said across that table than in some of the sessions — which is exactly why the program opens with a half day and a meal instead of a full day of sessions.

Day two
Full day
02
MissionWhy you exist, not what you do — and the hardest-day test that tells you whether the statement would have changed a single decision.
03
AccountabilityInputs against outputs, and a scorecard under ten lines with one name against every line. Anything nobody will own gets cut, which teaches you more than the metric would have.
04
CultureWhat you actually tolerate on your worst week, and the one standard this team will hold without exception for ninety days.
05
Team communicationThe three M\u2019s, the meeting cadence you will actually hold, and the seven-step process change — why first, always.
Day three
Full day
06
Individual communicationThe three kinds of one-on-one, and the conversation you already know you have been avoiding. You will write down the name.
07
AdversityThe four categories, and the Action Guide worked top to bottom — leadership first, the team last.
08
The ninety-day plan — your capstoneEach person diagnoses their own team across all seven pillars, with evidence, and writes the ninety-day plan: named owners, real dates, and an honest account of how it could fail. Written in the room, reviewed with Mark before you leave. This is the assessed piece of the credential.

What the team leaves with

In hand

  • A ninety-day plan with names and dates, signed by the room
  • A scorecard under ten lines, every line owned by a person who agreed to own it
  • The one standard you will hold without exception, in writing
  • A filled-in workbook each — not a binder that goes on a shelf

In the room

  • A shared vocabulary for how this team operates
  • An honest read on which pillar is actually weakest — usually not the one you expected
  • Several things said out loud that had been waiting a long time to be said

The credential

They leave with the Foundational Leadership certificate

Same seven pillars, same applied work, same capstone as the self-paced course — worked in the room with Mark facilitating rather than on video. The ninety-day plan each person writes on day three is the assessed piece, and Mark reviews it before anyone leaves.

In the room20 contact hours across a half-day and two full days.
The certificateFoundational Leadership, recording 17.5 contact hours — the figure the self-paced program is measured at. The extra hours on site are margin, not a larger claim.
Assessed byThe ninety-day capstone, rated against the same rubric online learners are held to.
VerificationEvery certificate carries a unique credential ID, and the attendance and capstone records sit on file.

Fit

Who this works for, and who it does not

A good fit

  • Leadership teams and intact working teams, roughly six to fifteen people
  • Teams where something has changed — growth, a merger, a new leader, a bad quarter
  • A leader willing to answer first in front of their own team

Not a good fit

  • A leader who wants the team fixed while they observe
  • Mixed groups who do not work together — the exercises are about this team, not teams in general
  • Anyone looking for a morale event. Several hours of this are uncomfortable on purpose.
FormatTwo and a half to three days on site. Day one afternoon, dinner, then two full days. 20 contact hours in the room. Day two morning through mid-afternoon.
FacilitationMark facilitates. The leader and the team participate as equals in the room.
LocationYour site or offsite. Travel is fine, scheduled in advance.
PricingDepends on team size and location. Inquire below.

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Tell us about the team

Enough to give you a real number and check the calendar. Mark reads these himself.

    No newsletter, no sequence. This goes to one inbox and gets a reply from a person.

    Not ready for the room yet? The free starter workbook has the baseline scan and the whole Trust session in it. Run that one yourself and you will know quickly whether you want someone else facilitating the other six.