Conceivian

How To Kill Being Nice at Work

Microsoft

Capria

Saqib Rasool

CEO at Conceivian | Ex-PM at Microsoft
 

Reclaim your power and learn how to be direct and speak with authority.

Master Your Executive Voice

Don't tolerate BS at work & develop more authentic relationships. Build trust & respect for better teamwork.

Foster Meaningful Relationships

Identify moods such as resentment, heroic suffering, & inauthentic serenity. Learn techniques to transform these moods.

Recognize and Transform Disempowering Moods

Build Executive Visibility with self-advocacy, assertiveness, influence, conflict, being strategic & navigating organizational dynamics 

 Global VP(ex-IBM); $2B P&L; 2000+ team

Palantir

Google

Amazon

Monica Aggarwal

Executive Leadership I Global VP (ex-IBM) I Engineering, Product & Partnerships

Cohort 12

Cohort 13

You’re already good at your job. That’s not the problem. The problem is this. AI is reshaping how teams work. Roles are shrinking. Layers are flattening. The bar for leadership is rising. The people who advance aren't just the most competent. They're the ones who act like leaders before they get the title. In high-stakes meetings, under pressure, in front of senior leaders, someone is getting that opportunity — because they know how to frame, influence, and command trust in 30 seconds flat. Those skills aren’t taught anywhere. This cohort changes that.Zero passive videos Zero generic advice 9+ hours of Live Practice Lab Every Session includes:• Live role-play using real scenarios • Direct coaching and reframing on the spot • Immediate feedback on language, structure, and delivery • Bite-sized frameworks you can use rightaway • Peer observation (learn 5x faster watching others get coached) What you’ll walk away able to do✔ Frame updates so execs get your impact in 30 seconds ✔ Answer tough questions without rambling ✔ Influence decisions in cross-functional teams ✔ Handle conflict without losing composure ✔ Navigate org dynamics without playing dirty ✔ Make your work impossible to ignore

Own the room. Move the C-suite. Shape the outcome.

How to Advocate for Yourself - Own your story

How to Be Assertive - Lead with conviction, not compliance

How to Influence Without Authority - Get things done when power is distributed

How to Manage Conflict: Handle heat w/o losing your cool

How to Be a Strategic Leader: For clarity & foresight

Navigate Organizational Dynamics - Understand the game & elevate your impact 

You are a Leader of People - Founder, Entrepreneur, CXO, VP, Senior Director, Director, Senior Manager, etc.

Senior Individual Contributors (ICs) - Product Manager, Engineer, Marketing/ Finance/Technical lead, Program/ Project Manager &amp; UX/CX Lead

New In Your Role and looking to develop Executive Visibility right at the outset (Congrats!)

Presence breaks under pressure. This workshop breaks you and builds you back up.

CPTO Madison Reed | Braintrust, Nextdoor

Madison Reed

Braintrust 🧠

Nextdoor

OpenTable

BlackRock

Elena Luneva

Survived the trading floor, the boardroom, and the hostile questions. 

Chief Product Officer, Executive Coach

Rosalee Gordon

Chief Product Officer, Improv Artist, Founder-Mode Impersonator

 Live reps on hostile questions, hard rooms, and high-stakes communication.

Mettle

Joust

Someone is going to challenge you in public. Lob a hostile question at you that you do not know the answer to. A room will turn on you and look to you to see how you respond. This is what we will do in this workshop. In that moment, every smart thing you know will disappear, as will your identity. Imposter syndrome and anxiety will let themselves in. You will forget your talking points, second-guess yourself, and scramble to recover while the room watches. The executive who walked in, prepared, suddenly looks small. Caught flat-footed. Reactive. This is not a character flaw. It is what happens when no one has ever trained you for pressure.In this workshop, I am going to put you into that situation on purpose. You will get uncomfortable. You will get pushed. You will practice getting ambushed, learn to reground and take back the room. You will learn to lead.Three hours of live hostile simulations, real frameworks, and reps that build the muscle memory and confidence you need to thrive regardless of the situation.The leaders who get promoted and earn the externally facing roles are the ones who show up even when they don't know the outcome.

You will learn to name what is happening, take a pause, get curious and re-direct the conversation when things are not going according to pl

Confidence

This will be a tough situation; if you are not ready to be challenged on the spot, this workshop is not for you.

Ready to get uncomfortable

Product and technology leaders strong in the room when things go according to plan but feel like an imposter when they do not.

The executive going external Leaders who are speaking at industry events, or represent their company in high-visibility settings.

Senior individual contributors stepping into executive roles. They have the substance. They are still building the composure to match it.

Learn how to say "No" without feeling bad, or shutting people down.

Exec Coach 🌎 The New Manager Podcast

LinkedIn

General Assembly

LexisNexis

Boston Beer

Kim Nicol

Executive Coach 

March 2026

Cohort 2

Good relationships -- whether at work, or in your personal life -- require saying No sometimes .In this course you'll learn the Gentle No. It's a powerful way tool for protecting your time and energy, so you can focus on your priorities. You don't need go into battle mode, and you don't need to say "Yes" to every request -- even if you really like being helpful.This is great for people who:<ul><li>Value harmony -- and often feel guilty about saying "No" when it seems easier to just say Yes.</li><li>Tend to put others needs first -- and then struggle to find time for what matters most to you.</li><li>Feel resentful, trapped, or just plain tired -- but the idea of letting someone down feels worse.</li></ul>There are a lot of ways to say "No," depending on the situation and goals. This is one that you want to have in your pocket, to use early and often.

Learn how to say "No" without feeling bad.

Grow your confidence and communication skills.

Break the habit of saying "Yes" by default.

Say "No" without feeling bad.

High-performers who don't want to let anyone down and say "Yes" too often.

Leaders who feel guilty about saying "No", or who have received feedback that they are too harsh.

Collaborative people who want to say "No" without blowing up relationships.

This isn’t a course about leadership theory. You leave with actions you can take the next day.  You'll know yourself and executives better.

I have a creative title, I move business

Sonos

H&R Block

Bruce Mau Design

Andrew Clark

Executive Design Leader, Creative coach & Venture mentor

Be the first. Help shape the course. Founding cohort pricing for Senior creatives and designers.

Founding Cohort

The current stateYou are good at your craft. You have earned your seat. But somewhere between the design review and the executive briefing, your work loses altitude.Senior creatives who work with executives run into the same invisible walls:<ul><li>You present process. They want outcomes.</li><li>You use the language of design. They use the language of investment, risk, and organizational levers.</li><li>You’ve built good work. But you haven’t built a relationship roster, so when a decision gets made, you weren’t in the room where it happened.</li><li>Your identity and your reputation with senior leaders are not the same thing.</li></ul>This isn’t a skills gap. It’s a paradigm gap. Executives think in a different operating system. This course teaches you to speak it fluently.By the end of six sessions, you’ll be able to:<ul><li>Reframe your mental model</li><li>Close the gap between your identity and your reputation</li><li>Build a deliberate relationship roster</li><li>Communicate in their language</li><li>Show up with executive-level presence</li></ul>

Your design is excellent. Your influence on leadership isn't. Yet.

Map your influence network

Translate your work into executive language

Audit your reputation

Build daily habits

Senior contributor moving toward leadershipYou’re skilled and credible on the team, but your work doesn’t get higher traction.

Design Manager building upward influenceYou’re responsible for the work and the team, but you’re always translating up, down and out.

Creative Director operating at the executive edgeYou’re already in the room. The challenge is converting proximity into influence.

How To Kill Being Nice at Work

What you'll learn

Why this topic matters

You'll learn from

Saqib Rasool