Stop talking around the issues. Start making progress.
Conversations that matter!® is a 12-week leadership programme that helps leaders and people managers set clear expectations, build ownership and address performance concerns—so they spend less time chasing, repeating themselves and resolving misunderstandings.
AI is changing work. Are your leadership conversations keeping up?
Changing employment rights. AI reshaping how work gets done. Pressure to deliver more, while keeping people motivated, supported and accountable.
Your managers are navigating all of this through everyday conversations. They need to explain expectations, challenge performance, understand concerns and help people take responsibility. Yet many have been promoted for their technical expertise, with little opportunity to develop these skills.
Under pressure, it’s easy to jump straight to answers, put off uncomfortable feedback or assume everyone has understood.
The consequences show up in repeated mistakes, unresolved tensions, unnecessary meetings and decisions that keep coming back to the manager.
“The quality of your leadership shows up in the quality of your conversations.”
What are your conversations leaving unresolved?
“We’ve already talked about this.”
“It’s quicker if I do it myself.”
“I thought we’d agreed what needed to happen.”
“AI wrote it. I assumed it was right.”
“They aren’t performing, can we get HR to handle it?”
These are frustrations we hear regularly from managers. Having a conversation doesn’t guarantee understanding or action.
Better conversations uncover what’s getting in the way, balance support with challenge and clarify next steps.
As AI becomes part of everyday work, leaders still need to invite questions, exercise judgement and check understanding. These skills give people space to think, contribute and take ownership.
Build leaders who bring out the best in others.
Conversations that matter!® is a twelve-week leadership programme, developed under real pressure with real leaders, and accredited by the Association for Coaching.
Created by Suzanne Hayes-Jones at The Laid Bare Company and delivered by Scaffold Coaching, the programme equips leaders to apply coaching skills to their workplace conversations.
At Scaffold, we help technically brilliant professionals become confident, capable and compassionate people leaders. That includes learning how to use their expertise without becoming the person who supplies every answer or solves every problem.
Through practical learning, reflection and supported practice, Conversations that matter!® helps leaders develop the habits that build trust, strengthen accountability and encourage personal responsibility.
What delegates will learn
-
Establish what a conversation needs to achieve, communicate expectations and check that understanding is shared.
-
Recognise assumptions, explore different perspectives and give people space to raise what matters.
-
Help people consider options and find a way forward, building confidence and reducing dependency on their manager.
-
Address difficult issues with greater confidence, while maintaining trust and encouraging responsibility.
-
Reach clear agreements about next steps, ownership and follow-through, so conversations lead to progress.
-
Notice when their habits close down discussion or create dependency, and practise approaches that encourage contribution and autonomy.
-
Delegates learn to use Suzanne Hayes-Jones’s Takeoff and Landing models to give workplace conversations a clear purpose and bring them to a useful conclusion.m description.
Who is it for?
For people managers, department heads, project managers and senior leaders who want to improve performance through the way they lead and communicate.
Particularly valuable when your organisation is experiencing:
Performance concerns that remain unresolved.
Micromanagement or over-reliance on managers.
Unclear expectations and inconsistent accountability.
Silo working or strained relationships.
Back-to-back meetings with limited progress.
Change that is affecting confidence, trust or wellbeing.
How the programme is delivered
-
Self-paced, bite-sized and thought-provoking learning delivered through the programme platform.
-
Exercises that raise awareness of current leadership strengths and identify gaps worth working on.
-
Sessions following each eLearning module to deepen understanding of the core concepts and connect them with workplace experience.
-
Half-day sessions focused on observed, real practice with real-time feedback.
-
Tailored feedback to help leaders make sustainable changes in their everyday conversations.
The twelve-week programme takes a modular, blended learning approach designed to help learning stick. Plus, participants can return to the programme platform to revisit content, reflect on their leadership and consolidate their learning between sessions.
One hour. A conversation worth having.
Book your free taster team workshop.
Give your managers an opportunity to step back and explore how their conversations help—or hinder—progress.
Explore how better conversations drive progress in this free, one-hour interactive workshop. Leave with practical ideas to try straight away. Perfect for a coffee morning, leadership team session or lunch and learn.
Choose the focus most relevant to your team:
The conversation you’re putting off
Explore why earlier, clearer conversations matter, what gets in the way and how to prepare for a conversation that needs to happen.
AI can draft the message. Can you make the conversation count?
Explore how leaders can build understanding, confidence and ownership as AI changes the way their teams work.