Getting the Reinvention Lab paid for by your employer
Most companies have a learning and development budget, and most managers would rather spend it on something that changes how you work than on another certificate. The Lab is built to be easy to approve: a fixed price, a clear schedule, and outputs you can put in front of your team.
Here's what you'll need, and a message you can send today.
Your invoice
When you enrol, you'll receive a receipt from Stripe by email. If your finance team needs a formal invoice with your company name, address and tax number, reply to your confirmation email with those details and I'll send one within two working days.
Two budget years. The Lab is sold in 2026 and runs in 2027, so if your 2026 budget is nearly spent, ask for the fee to be split: part invoiced in December, part in January. If you're on the payment plan, each instalment comes with its own invoice, dated when it's paid. Sign up by 10 November if you want the instalment route.
Early bird. If you're waiting on approval, tell your manager the price goes from $1,050 to $1,250 after 31 October (or when the first 10 seats are gone). It's a real deadline, and it helps a decision get made.
The case for your manager
Your manager doesn't need to know the Lab aligns with your goals. They need to know what changes in the work, and when.
Three things make this easy to say yes to:
It runs on real work.
From week three you're working on one live piece of your actual job, and from week four you're running a designed experiment inside it. Your manager sees results during the Lab, not after.
Something comes back to the team.
Every participant finishes with a Work Reinvention Blueprint (what to automate, augment, delegate, stop, preserve and create), a personal AI system built around their role, and a short capstone they can present to their team. The frameworks (the Co-Intelligence Canvas, the experiment protocol) are designed to be reused by colleagues who weren't in the room.
It's the missing half of the tools.
Most organisations have bought AI licences and run a training session. Fewer have anyone who has redesigned how the work actually gets done around them. That's what you'd be bringing back.
Lead with the problem your team has, in your manager's words. Then the outputs. Then the price and dates. Keep it short.
The email
Copy, fill in the brackets, send. Cut anything that doesn't fit how you and your manager talk.
SubjectA six-week programme I'd like to expense
Hi [Manager],
I'd like to enrol in the Reinvention Lab, a six-week live programme on redesigning how we work with AI, running 12 January to 16 February 2027. I'd like to put it through the L&D budget.
Why now: [one or two sentences in your own words about what's changing in your role or the team's work. For example: "We've rolled out Copilot across the team, but we haven't changed how the work itself gets done, and I'd like to be the person who works that out for us." Or: "My role is shifting from doing the analysis to directing and reviewing it, and I want to design that deliberately rather than by default."]
What I'd bring back:
- A redesigned version of one of my real workflows, tested during the programme: what to automate, what to delegate to AI, what to stop doing, and where my judgment needs to stay central.
- A personal AI system built around my role, which I can document and share with the team.
- A short capstone presentation for the team on what changed and what's transferable.
- The frameworks the Lab uses (a canvas for deciding how people and AI should divide work, and a protocol for running AI experiments), which we could reuse across the team.
The programme is run by Anwulika Okonjo, who designed AI learning programmes for over 250,000 public servants at Apolitical and has worked inside an AI product company. It's live online, one 90-minute session a week plus about two to three hours of applied work, and everything is recorded. Details are here: https://reinvention-lab.changingpeople.co/.
The cost is [$1,050 if approved before 31 October / $1,250], invoiced to the company. [If useful: the fee can be split across the 2026 and 2027 budgets.]
Happy to talk it through. If you'd rather I put this in a one-pager, say so.
Thanks, [Your name]
P.S. There's a team rate of $5,000 for three seats, which includes a private session for the team. If you think [colleague] or [colleague] would benefit, it might be worth sending us together so we come back with shared language rather than one person's notes.
After the Lab
You'll receive a certificate of completion once the six weeks are done, and a copy of your capstone, so you have something to file with the expense and something to show for it.
If you hit a snag
Reply to any email from me, or write to anwulika@changingpeople.co. If your finance team has a vendor form, a purchase-order process or a question about the UK entity the invoice comes from, send it over and I'll deal with it directly.