Bespoke Programmes — Set The Tone

Why bespoke

Your people are good at their jobs. That's why they're leading teams.

But leadership is a different job to the one they were promoted out of. Most of them were never taught how to do it.

Some are brand new and don't know where to start. Some have been doing it for years but never had any real development. Each is figuring it out their own way, with their own habits and blind spots.

The result is inconsistency. Conversations that should be happening aren't. People who should be growing are stuck. Standards that should be clear are vague. Hires that should be sharp are lukewarm.

The real problem is bigger than any one manager. Your business needs all of its leaders to be better, faster, and pulling in the same direction. That's not something a two-day workshop fixes. It takes a proper programme, built around your business, delivered over months, with coaching built in.

That's what this is.

How it works

We build your leadership team from the inside out.

Four steps. This is the process most training providers skip, and the reason most management training fails to stick.

Understand your team

We start by understanding your business, your culture, and where each leader sits today. What are the gaps? Who's struggling? Who's ready for more? We do this work before any training begins, because the biggest reason programmes fail is that the culture contradicts what people learn.

Build the right programme

We design a programme around what your team actually needs. Not everyone gets the same thing. New leaders need different content from experienced ones. Operations managers need different tools from sales leads. Bespoke means bespoke.

Staggered delivery

Training delivered over months, not crammed into two days. Weekly or fortnightly sessions, your choice. The research on spaced learning is clear: this is how adults actually retain and apply new skills.

Coaching throughout

Every participant gets 1:1 coaching with me during the programme. McKinsey's research shows that programmes pairing training with follow-up coaching deliver more than double the ROI of programmes that don't. It's how the development actually changes behaviour.

What you actually get

You're not buying training sessions. You're buying what changes after them.

Here is what your business looks like once your managers can genuinely lead.

Managers who manage

Your managers run their teams with confidence. They handle performance conversations, hiring decisions, and difficult feedback themselves, instead of escalating every one to you.

Problems solved before they reach you

Issues get resolved at team level, not on your desk. The founder trap breaks. You spend less time firefighting and more time on the work only you can do.

One way of managing, across the business

Everyone from the exec team down works from the same frameworks. A new starter gets the same quality of management whoever they happen to report to.

Your best people stay

When managers are equipped, people feel supported. Retention improves, and your strongest people can see a future worth staying for.

The programme

The Management Operating System.

Four layers, each building on the last. Together they turn someone who was promoted for being good at their job into someone who can run a team without you in the room.

Managing You

Your managers learn to lead on purpose instead of by accident. They understand their own defaults, manage their time and energy, and delegate properly. They stop being the bottleneck on their own team.

Building Your Team

They build teams that trust each other and say the hard thing early. A no-fear culture where problems surface while they are still small, instead of landing on your desk fully grown.

The Talent Lifecycle

The do-it-on-Monday layer: hiring well, onboarding, 1:1s, feedback, and performance. Your managers hire the right people and handle underperformance without handing it back to you.

The Bigger Picture

They learn to think beyond their own team: managing up, working across functions, and connecting what their team does to where the business is actually going.

And they keep the tools. Along the way each manager builds their own leadership principles, career development frameworks, interview scorecards, and development plans. Tools they use on Monday, not slides they forget by Friday.

Why it sticks

Most management training is forgotten by Friday. This is a system they keep using.

Bespoke

Built around your business

Not a generic course. The curriculum is built around your actual challenges and values, so what your managers learn on Tuesday they use on Wednesday.

Coaching

1:1 coaching built in

Every manager gets individual coaching. It is where the real shifts happen, and it is what most providers either skip or charge three times more for.

Platform

A platform they keep

Not a course you finish and forget. A library of frameworks, templates, and tools your managers come back to, plus direct access to me when something comes up.

Measured

Measured, not assumed

We baseline every manager before we start and measure again at the end, so you see exactly what shifted and what still needs work.

What I need from you: protected time, commitment to the process, and a willingness to let your managers actually lead.

Arran Russell

Why me

15 years of mistakes, compressed so you don't repeat them.

You probably don't need more theory. You need someone who's been where your managers are now, made the mistakes, and figured out what works.

I'm not a founder. I was the senior exec inside a business that grew from 25 people to well over 100, the person the founder relied on to develop the management layer beneath them. I started with a handful of direct reports. I ended up responsible for over 60 people across the UK and Europe.

Most small businesses don't have access to proper leadership development. Their managers are learning on the job, in isolation, with whatever they can pick up from a book or a podcast. The stuff I teach isn't academic. It's what actually worked, what didn't, and what I wish someone had given me in year one.

Years in management

100+

People directly managed

200+

Hires made

300+

In teams I've led

Founding client offer · 5 spots

From £300 per manager. Founding rate.

I'm taking on five founding clients at a fraction of the full programme price. You get the full programme. I get the case studies and feedback that shape what comes next.

The founding rate runs £300 to £600 per manager, depending on how many in-person sessions you want, the degree of leadership alignment and involvement, and how bespoke the build is.

From £300

Per manager · founding rate

3 managers

from £900

5 managers

from £1,500

10 managers

from £3,000

The trade.

In exchange for the founding rate, I ask for three things: honest feedback as we go so I can make the programme sharper, willingness to be a reference once you've seen the results, and a public case study if it works.

Book a conversation → 5 founding spots. Once they're filled, full pricing applies.

Full pricing from client 6 onwards

Every programme is bespoke, but here's the structure. Per-head cost decreases as team size grows.

Team size

Programme investment

Per head

3-5 managers

£3,000 - £8,000

£1,000 - £1,600 per person

6-10 managers

£6,000 - £12,000

£1,000 - £1,200 per person

11-15 managers

£11,000 - £18,000