Foundations Programme — Cohort 2

What changes

From doing the work to leading the people who do it.

Most of your managers got the job because they were good at the old one. Nobody taught them the new one. 82% of UK managers have never had any formal training. Twelve weeks later, this is what's different.

The busiest person on the team.

BeforeEverything routes through them. They're doing the work rather than running it, and you can't give them more because they're already full.

AfterThey delegate properly. They know which things need their attention and which need letting go, and they run their week like a leader rather than the most senior doer. You get a manager with capacity.

"It's not your job to fix every problem. Now it's: what do you think the solution is?"Olivia · Account Director, PR Agency

Feedback is an event.

BeforeSo it doesn't happen. Small things become big things, and the big things eventually land on your desk.

After1:1s are weekly and feedback is routine, in the moment, both directions. The hard conversation happens this week instead of next quarter, and fewer of them reach you.

"I've normalised feedback to the point where he's not even expecting the worst. He just sees it as a small thing."Leanne Buckley · Head of Customer Success, Twine

Standards drift.

BeforeA deadline slips, someone asks "does that matter?", the manager says it's fine. Nobody decided to lower the bar. It just went.

AfterThey hold the line, because what you tolerate, you teach. Walk past something below standard and you've set a new one. Your managers stop walking past.

"There were things I'd been letting slide. Now I have those conversations, and it's made my working relationships stronger and expectations clearer."Jake · Senior Account Manager

A group of people, not a team.

BeforeIndividuals reporting to one person, with the manager as the bottleneck.

AfterA team that runs without everything going through them. Responsibility handed out, standards shared, people developing each other. This is where the other three add up.

"I would have benefited, my team would have benefited, my employers would have benefited."Jack Richens · Senior Engineer, Base

From Cohort 1

Don't take my word for it.

Cohort 1 finished in July. Here's what the managers on it had to say.

Leanne Buckley, Head of Customer Success, Twine · Cohort 1 · 5 min

"

I would definitely put people on it. It's one of those things I wish I'd had years ago. I would have benefited, my team would have benefited, my employers would have benefited. I'd have made much better decisions, taken different actions, and done things a lot quicker if I'd done this years back.

- Jack Richens, Senior Engineer, Base

"

A lot of leadership development can be quite fluffy: personality types, communication styles, how to work together. This was much more nuts and bolts. Managing yourself, managing your time, managing your team, feedback, difficult conversations. Very specific, tangible, implementable advice.

Olivia · Account Director, PR Agency

"

Difficult conversations are really uncomfortable and people dread having them. Having the toolkit, almost like a script for how to approach them, gives me the confidence to actually want to address things rather than going in blind.

Jack Richens · Senior Engineer, Base

"

I'm now meeting with my direct report once every single week, having shorter and more frequent one-to-ones. So the issue of a deadline not being hit, I already know it's not going to happen. I'm not even getting to the point where these situations are arising, because I've put all the legwork in to make sure that doesn't happen.

Leanne Buckley · Head of Customer Success, Twine

"

This is very different to other training programmes, and so much better. Where most training is hours or day-long and gives you a long list of unspecific things to do that are probably forgotten within days, this is structured around your personal goals, strengths, weaknesses and leadership style. The fact that you get actual one-to-ones is super valuable, it's so personalised.

Jake · Senior Account Manager

What happened next at Base

Twelve weeks after the programme, Jack had documented the knowledge that lived only in his head, handed real coaching responsibility to his engineers, and built the confidence to have the conversations he used to avoid. Then Base commissioned a bespoke leadership programme for its heads of department, and Jack is putting members of his own team forward for future cohorts. One manager's training became a company-wide investment.

Worried about the time commitment? So was Cohort 1. "I was worried the programme would eat too much into my current workload, but it's actually been very manageable at one hour a week." - Leanne Buckley, Twine

The programme

Four layers of management that build on each other.

Every module is practical. If they can't use it on Monday, it doesn't make the cut.

01 · Managing You

Lead yourself first.

Including the one shift that changes everything, and almost nobody makes it.

Leadership mindset, energy management, self-awareness, leadership styles, and the delegation habits that stop you being the bottleneck. Builds: a Working With Me document your team reads on day one, and an AI Leadership Coach calibrated to your style.

OutcomeManagers who lead deliberately instead of reactively, and delegate with confidence.

02 · Building Your Team

A culture where people actually perform.

How you turn a group of individuals into a team that works without you hovering over it.

Psychological safety, shared purpose, trust, and the operational clarity that stops things falling through the cracks. The conditions every high-performing team needs.

OutcomeA team that holds a high bar, and a manager who stops walking past things below it.

03 · The Talent Lifecycle

Get the best out of your people.

The practical, do-it-on-Monday content.

Hire well, onboard properly, run 1:1s people actually value, give feedback that lands, and have the conversations most managers avoid. Builds: an Ideal Colleague Profile, a Career Development Framework, and an AI Talent Toolkit that generates hiring profiles on demand.

OutcomeFeedback and 1:1s become routine, and hiring, onboarding and performance stop being escalated to you.

04 · The Bigger Picture

See beyond your team.

The difference between someone who manages tasks and someone who actually leads.

Strategic thinking, managing up, cross-functional influence, and connecting your team's work to the direction of the business. Builds: a "What Does My Manager Value?" diagnostic that maps where you're delivering and where you're wasting effort.

OutcomeManagers who make decisions in the business's interest, not just their team's.

Who it's for

Do you need to be managing people already?

No. Most people on the programme are, but not all of them, and the ones who are not tend to get something quite specific out of it.

Chris joined without a team. He wanted to move into management, the structure where he works is flat, and rather than wait for a title to appear he came to build the skills first.

Two things happened. He started running the training and development part of his job properly, to a structure, instead of showing someone once and hoping it stuck. And he stopped underselling what he was already doing.

"Before starting the course, if anyone asked me, have you got any people management experience? I would give a very flimsy answer. I would probably say, no. But now, having done this course and reflecting on my past experiences, I say, yes, I have."

Chris Gent · Senior Account Manager · Cohort 1

Some of it will stay theoretical until you have a team of your own. Chris says so himself. What you get in the meantime is the thinking in place before the step up, and something concrete to point at when you go for it.

Read Chris's story →

How it's delivered

Live, coached, applied.

This isn't a self-paced course. It's a live programme designed around the way adults actually retain and apply new skills.

Arran Russell running a live online session

Live, every Tuesday at 10am

1

12 weeks of live sessions, in two blocks

Starting Tuesday 10 November 2026. A 2-hour kick-off followed by weekly 1-hour sessions, every Tuesday at 10am. Six sessions before Christmas, a three-week break, then six more from 12 January, finishing 16 February. Which means you don't have to wait until January to start. By the time everyone else is writing resolutions, you'll be halfway through.

"Having them all on a regular cadence in the diary online. It was great. It was structured. I had several holidays which meant I missed a few sessions, but all the resources were available online for me to catch up on. I can't think of a different or better way of doing it."

Chris Gent, Senior Account Manager · Cohort 1

2

4 x 1:1 coaching sessions with me

Two during the programme, one of them over the Christmas break so the momentum doesn't go out with the decorations, and two within six months after. McKinsey's research is clear: leadership programmes that pair training with follow-up coaching deliver more than double the ROI. The coaching is what turns frameworks into habits once you're back in the chaos of the week.

"You have your training session, you're learning the principles. Then you're applying it in your day-to-day. Then you've got your one-to-one, and you're going, 'this is what I've done', or 'it didn't quite land, what would you suggest?' The combination of the two has been really helpful."

Head of Marketing, Media Tech Company · Cohort 1

3

The Set The Tone platform

Deeper dives on every topic, templates you can use, and a community of managers at the same stage. 2 years' access included. Your platform for going deeper between sessions and long after the programme ends.

4

Direct access to me throughout

Stuck on a hard conversation? About to make a hire and want a sense-check? Got a team problem you're not sure how to handle? Send me a message. Response within 24 hours.

Arran Russell

Why me

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

I wasn't the founder. I was the exec the CEO relied on to build the management layer beneath him, inside a business that grew from 25 people to well over 100 and went through a private equity cycle while I was there. I started managing two people. I ended up leading 60 across seven services in five countries, and building the management teams that ran them.

I made every mistake in the book. Hired out of desperation. Avoided the hard conversations. Let small problems become crises because I didn't want to be "that" manager.

Two things fixed that. Before private equity, we sat inside a bigger group, so I got the structured leadership development most small businesses never see. Then I spent a decade putting it to work, training and coaching first-time managers as we grew. This programme is both of those compressed into twelve weeks: everything I wish someone had given me in year one, tested on dozens of managers since.

Cohort 1 finished in July and their feedback has shaped how this one runs. Cohort 2 starts on 10 November at an early-bird rate.

"Over the years I have done a lot of different training courses, and they are normally pretty poor. It rarely feels authentic, like they are reading from a sheet as opposed to teaching from their own experience. With the Foundations course, I was instantly engaged, as Arran is talking from years of experience as well as contextualising his own views with theories and research."

Chris Gent · Senior Account Manager · Cohort 1

25 → 100+

Company headcount while on the leadership team

60

People led across 7 services in 5 countries

200+

Hires made

3x

Revenue and profit through a private equity cycle

"

What you tolerate, you teach. Every time a manager walks past something that isn't up to standard, they've set a new one. This programme is where they stop walking past.

- Arran Russell, founder

Cohort 2 · Early-bird

10 spots. £497 until 13 October.

Cohort 2 opens at the early-bird rate. After 13 October it moves to £797. Cohort 3 onwards is £997.

£497

Early-bird · until 13 Oct

Full price from Cohort 3: ~~£997~~

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What's included

12 live online sessions: 2 hour kick-off + 11 weekly 1 hour sessions (Tuesdays at 10am). Six from 10 November, three weeks off over Christmas, six more from 12 January
4 x 1:1 coaching sessions with Arran (2 during, 2 within 6 months after)
Direct access to Arran throughout, response within 24 hours
2 years' access to the Set The Tone platform and community when it launches
Cohort capped at 10

Reserve your spot · £497 → Prefer to spread the cost? 3 × £166

Not sure yet? Book a 15-minute chat and I'll tell you straight whether it's right for you. No pitch, and I won't chase you afterwards.

100% money-back guarantee

If you show up to the first 3 sessions and feel this isn't worth your time, I'll refund you in full. No questions, no awkwardness.

"Even if you just took one thing from it, it is going to change the way you behave towards your reports, and then how they treat you in response."

Leanne Buckley · Head of Customer Success, Twine

Starts Tuesday 10 November. Early-bird £497 until 13 October, then £797. Six sessions before Christmas, three weeks off, six more from 12 January. Cohort capped at 10.

Still not sure if it's right for you?

Jake, Cohort 1, on what he'd say to a manager on the fence · 35 sec

Then let's just talk about it. Fifteen minutes, no pitch, and I won't chase you afterwards. Tell me what's going on with your team and I'll give you an honest answer about whether this programme is the right move, or whether something else fits better. If you'd rather write than talk, email me instead.

Book a 15-minute chat →

Or reserve your spot now · £497 →