The leader / design track 🧭 · for CHROs, heads of function & exec · 6 x 45 min · no code, ever
Thinking mode: how to build a performance system that grows people and holds up when it has to end one. What the system is for, why the manager is the system, ladders and levelling, promotion and the bias inside potential, underperformance as a design question, and the exits you choose. Each session ends with the questions to ask your organisation.
What performance management is for
The four-stage lifecycle, the three purposes kept apart, and an honest look at why the annual cycle failed - plus where OKRs stop and this begins.
🧑🏫 Leader 2 · easyThe manager is the system
Google's Project Oxygen put "is a good coach" first for a reason. What to select for, what to train, and why no framework survives a manager who will not coach.
🪜 Leader 3 · mediumCareer ladders and levelling
Competency frameworks that describe observable scope rather than time served, and levelling calibration run as policy instead of as folklore.
⬆️ Leader 4 · mediumPromotion, and the bias inside "potential"
Where promotion systems leak: the broken rung, the sponsorship gap, and what the 9-box grid quietly encodes when nobody defines potential.
🩺 Leader 5 · decidingUnderperformance as a system question
Cause taxonomy, improvement-plan policy, the Netflix keeper-test alternative and its bias problem, and your real exposure across jurisdictions.
🔄 Leader 6 · decidingRetention, succession, and the exits you chose
Regretted attrition, stay interviews, key-person risk, succession that is more than a spreadsheet - and what your exits teach everyone still there.
The manager / run track 🛠️ · for team leads & middle management · 10 x 45 min · templates + worked examples
One running company, Cartwheel, threaded through every demo: you run a real ramp, coach instead of fixing, build a growth plan someone opens twice, hold a career conversation against a ladder, diagnose a cause before intervening, drive the PIP Lab, and handle the three conversations everyone avoids - ending with your own team's system on a single page.
Foundations
Ramp, coach, grow, decide - the lifecycle you already run, the leverage curve, and the four causes you must name before acting.
🚀 Manager 2 · easyOnboarding and ramp
The first 90 days: ramp milestones, what "good" looks like in writing, and the early honest signal that prevents most later trouble.
💬 Manager 3 · mediumCoaching, not fixing
GROW, oversight matched to task-relevant maturity rather than seniority, and the real difference between coaching, feedback, mentoring and sponsorship.
📈 Manager 4 · mediumGrowth plans people actually use
A skills matrix, exactly one growth goal, and a stretch assignment designed so the person can fail safely and still learn.
🗺️ Manager 5 · mediumThe career conversation and the ladder
Turning a ladder into behaviour you can observe, saying "not yet" with an actual route attached, and building promotion evidence over months.
🔍 Manager 6 · hands-onDiagnose before you act
Will, skill, fit, context - the four causes, the wrong intervention for each, and how to tell which one you are actually looking at.
⚖️ Manager 7 · hardestThe PIP lab
Build an improvement plan lever by lever in a live lab and watch recovery chance and defensibility climb together - then watch two shortcuts destroy both.
🗣️ Manager 8 · hands-onThe hard conversations
Promotion denial, pay, and "this is not working" - what to say, what never to say, and why the process shapes fairness as much as the answer does.
🚪 Manager 9 · hands-onManaged exits, done with dignity
Documentation, fair process across jurisdictions, the conversation itself, and the team the next morning - who are watching very closely.
🏛️ Manager 10 · hardestYour team's system on one page
The capstone: ramp, coaching cadence, growth plans, ladder, escalation path and exit route - assembled, then deliberately attacked.
Choose your path 🗺️
Two doors, one course. Leaders design the system; managers run it - and both meet at the PIP Lab. Employees are welcome to read either as knowledge-sharing.
The knowledge map 🧠
Both tracks at a glance - hover a session to spotlight its concepts, click any node to jump in.