Programs

Goals and performance · Facilitator-led

Performance Review Season

A pay case and four review conversations, rehearsed in the three weeks before reviews.

A three-week program for managers with performance reviews to run, assigned by an HR or people lead or a facilitator in the weeks before review season, built on Renatus. One pay document and four simulation rooms · Three weeks, one room in the first and two in each of the next · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

3 weeks · 5 rooms · Total time 2 hours 50 min

Who it's for: Managers with reviews to hold and pay decisions to make or recommend, from team leads to directors, and the HR or people lead who briefs them.
Cadence: 3 weeks
Format: Facilitator-led
Program sessions: 3

Who it's for

Managers with reviews to hold and pay decisions to make or recommend, from team leads to directors, and the HR or people lead who briefs them.

Output

A pay document per manager before reviews open: every role against its band, the cases that matter for retention, a refresh costed at two levels
A scored report after every conversation room, with the moment that earned each score and one recommended focus
A trajectory across every attempt, and for the HR lead a Ren summary of each manager and a team report
Scored against published frameworks: pay band variance audit, retention concentration analysis, two-level refresh costing, care and challenge, conversation layers, high-stakes dialogue, clear communication, disciplined prioritisation, principled negotiation (BATNA and ZOPA) and anchoring and concession theory

Program contents

Pay recommendation — Employee Comp Review
Review conversations · Hard conversations — Performance Conversation · Difficult Conversation
Refusing well · Pay negotiation — Saying No Simulation · Negotiation

How the program works

The rooms

Employee Comp Review

Framework

Set-up: the company stage and headcount, current comp by role or function, the market reference bands and their source, what talent the company is trying to attract or retain, and who the review is for.

Performance Conversation

Simulation

Calibration: role title, the situation type (coaching a high performer, underperformance, a PIP or an exit conversation), industry or sector, a brief description of working context, and the organisation website as an option.

Difficult Conversation

Simulation

Calibration: their role and seniority, the kind of conversation being simulated, who they are having it with, and what is at stake.

Saying No Simulation

Simulation

Calibration: role title or relationship, the power dynamic (junior upward, peer, manager, senior or personal relationship), a brief description of context, and, as options, the industry or sector and the organisation website.

Negotiation

Simulation

Calibration: role title and seniority, the negotiator level (early career, mid, senior, executive or founder), industry or sector, and, as options, the organisation website and a real upcoming negotiation to mirror.

Why this program exists

Managers go into review season with twenty conversations to hold in a fortnight, a rating to defend in each one, and pay decisions to make or recommend with a partial view of where each person sits against the market. The message gets softened until nobody hears it, the request for a raise gets a no with nothing attached, and the counter-offer arrives after the person has decided to leave. This program prepares them through one document and four simulations. Ren builds the pay case from the manager's own team data, then builds each conversation from the manager's real role, team and situation and plays the person across the table, so every scene is new and moves with what the manager says.

What you'll achieve

A pay document for their own team before reviews open: every role against its band, the off-band cases and why, the retention cases, a refresh costed at two levels, and recommendations
Rehearsal of the four conversations review season brings, as often as they want: the review, the hardest one on the list, the refusal, the counter-offer
A scored report after every simulation: each dimension with the moment that earned its score, what worked, the risk signals, strengths, development areas, blind spots where evidenced, and one recommended focus
Unlimited attempts at every room, each a different scene for their current role, scored on the same dimensions and charted against every attempt before it

At a glance

Who it's for: Managers with performance reviews to hold and pay decisions to make or recommend: team leads with five reviews, heads of function with thirty, directors who sign off a layer of recommendations. It is assigned by an HR or people lead or a facilitator in the weeks before review season, and the manager's lines in this guide are for whoever that is; a manager's own manager can assign it the same way. Every room calibrates to role, level and situation, so one cohort can hold a first-time team lead and a department head. It assumes the organisation can supply the market bands.
Cadence: 3 weeks
1: Pay recommendation · Employee Comp Review · Read the Retention Concentration and the Refresh Costing; check the bands used are the organisation's
2: Review conversations · Hard conversations · Performance Conversation · Difficult Conversation · Read Clarity of Message and Path Forward; read What Fell Short and Follow-through; read the Ren summary across three rooms
3: Refusing well · Pay negotiation · Saying No Simulation · Negotiation · Read Alternative and Rationale; read Concession Pattern; read the team report; set the plan for review week

Session by session

Week 1: Pay recommendation

Know where every team member's pay sits against its band, which cases matter for retention, and what a refresh costs at two levels, before a single review is held.

Employee Comp Review

Week 2: Review conversations · Hard conversations

Deliver a rating the direct report hears the first time, own it when challenged, and leave them with a path forward

Performance Conversation Difficult Conversation

Week 3: Refusing well · Pay negotiation

Decline a raise or a promotion request with a reason the person can check and an alternative with a date on it

Saying No Simulation Negotiation

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability