There is one worry I hear a lot from consultancies about taking a leadership programme online. The room is what they sell. The energy, the practice, the facilitator who notices the person at the back who has gone quiet. Put that online, they say, and you get a video library that nobody finishes.
They are right about the video library. They are wrong that it is the only way to do it.
The answer is not to put the room online. It is to put everything around the room online, so the programme keeps working in the weeks between workshops, and to keep the parts that need people with people.
The short answer
To take a leadership programme online without losing what makes it work:
- Keep the live parts live. Workshops, practice with others and the facilitator's judgement stay with people, in the room or on a video call.
- Move the between-parts into a portal. Short session videos, the workbook, reflections and progress, in programme order, in your brand.
- Add an AI coach trained on the programme, so delegates get answers between sessions and personal questions still reach a facilitator.
- Nudge delegates by what they have done, not by the calendar.
- Start from the material you already have, and run it with one cohort before rolling it out.
For most consultancies that means a blended leadership programme, not a fully online one.
What the room actually does
"The room" is several things at once, and they do not all need the same treatment. Taking a programme online goes well when you separate them:
| Part of the workshop | Online? | How |
|---|---|---|
| The model and how it is explained | Yes | Short session videos and the workbook, in programme order |
| Practising with other people | Mostly live | In workshops or live video calls, with rehearsal online beforehand |
| The facilitator's judgement | No | Stays with people, and the AI coach passes personal questions on |
| Questions after the session | Yes | An AI coach trained on the programme, any time of day |
| Commitment and accountability | Both | Set in the room, followed up online with nudges and peers |
| Proof for the client | Yes | Ratings and confidence, per cohort |
Look at that list and the fear changes shape. The parts that make a workshop special mostly stay live. The parts that go online are the ones that were never working well anyway: the workbook in a drawer, the questions nobody asked, the follow up that depended on a facilitator's evenings. How to reinforce leadership training has a follow up plan for those weeks.
Three shapes an online leadership programme can take
Blended: live workshops, a portal in between
The workshops stay as they are. Everything between them moves into a portal: the session material, the weekly action, the AI coach, the nudges, the reflections. This is the shape I recommend to most consultancies. It keeps the room and fixes the gaps.
Live online: video workshops, a portal in between
The same, with workshops on video calls instead of in a venue. It suits clients spread across several offices or countries. The portal matters even more here, because a video call ends the moment the last person clicks leave.
Mostly self-paced, with live moments
Short sessions delegates work through on their own, with a few live group calls at key points. This is the shape for scale, when a client wants a programme for hundreds of managers and full workshops for all of them are not realistic. The AI coach and the nudges carry much more of the load, so they need to be good.
You can run all three from the same material, for example the blended version as the premium option and the self-paced version for scale.
What not to do
Do not film the workshop and upload it. A three hour recording is not an online programme. Nobody watches it, and the parts worth watching are buried in the parts that only worked live.
Do not put everything in one library. A list of forty videos asks the delegate to design their own programme. Sessions in order, each with one clear action, keep people moving.
Do not drop the practice. Leadership is learned by doing. If moving online means delegates only watch and read, the programme gets cheaper and stops working.
Do not switch on a generic chatbot. One that answers from the open internet will contradict your model. A coach for your programme answers from your material and knows when to hand over. I have written more about what AI does inside a leadership programme.
Do not launch to every client at once. Run it with one cohort, read what delegates ask and where they stall, then adjust.
What you need, and probably already have
Taking a programme online sounds like starting again. It rarely is.
Session recordings or slides. If you have recordings, they can be cut into short sessions. If you only have slides and a workbook, the sessions can be re-produced with an avatar or animation, without anyone stepping in front of a camera.
The workbook and the models. These become the backbone of the portal and the source for the AI coach.
Facilitator notes and the questions delegates ask. These are gold. They tell the AI coach how your facilitators actually explain things, and which questions come up every cohort.
A few decisions. The order and pace of the sessions. What the coach should answer and what it should always pass to a facilitator. What the client organisation sees. How it should look and sound.
Keeping it your programme
The quiet risk of going online is that the programme starts to feel generic. A few things stop that.
Your voice everywhere. The coach, the nudges and the welcome emails should sound like your facilitators, use your terms and follow your model. Every message approved by you before it goes out.
Your facilitators still visible. When a delegate brings something personal, it reaches a person, with context. The online part is there to carry the routine, not to replace the people.
Your brand, not a platform's. Your name, your colours and your web address. Delegates should experience it as your programme, start to finish. The white-label platform guide has a checklist for this.
How long it takes
With us, the path from your material to a live programme usually looks like this:
- Week 1: you send what you have. Videos, workbook, slides, notes.
- Week 2: we train your AI coach on it, in your voice, with your boundaries.
- Weeks 3 to 5: we build the portal, the nudges and any presenter videos.
- Week 6: you launch. Logins go out, payments work, the control panel is live.
After launch we host it, watch it and update it as the programme changes. The costs are laid out in what a programme portal costs.
Questions consultancies ask
How do I turn my leadership workshop into an online programme? Separate what the workshop does. Keep the practice and the facilitator's judgement live, move the content, questions and follow up into a portal, and add an AI coach trained on your material. Start from the recordings, slides and workbook you already have.
Should a leadership programme be fully online or blended? For most consultancies, blended. Live workshops keep the practice and the energy, and a portal in between keeps the programme working. Fully online suits clients who need it at scale.
Will delegates actually finish an online programme? Completion depends on structure, not on video. Short sessions in order, one action a week, nudges that react to progress and fast answers when someone is stuck keep people going. A library of long recordings does not.
Do we need to re-record our sessions? No. Existing recordings can be cut into short sessions, and slides and workbooks can be turned into presenter videos with an avatar or animation.
Will an online version undercut our workshops? Not if it is built around them. The portal makes the workshops work better, and gives you a self-paced version for clients who need scale. You decide which you sell to whom.
Where to start
Pick the programme you run most often. Write down what happens in the room that only works with people, and what happens between workshops today. The first list stays live. The second list is your portal.
If you'd like to see your own programme as a portal, the programme portal page shows the whole system, and I'll build a companion from your website, free. See your own companion
Robert, founder of Thinkable Systems