Practice for hard conversations
You have gone over it in the shower all week. Steady is where you say it out loud, like you would in real life, to someone who answers back, and find out what your words actually did.
iPhone and Android · Voice or text · No account · 7 days free
The gap
You were promoted for being good at the job. Nobody trained you for this part of it.
There is no shortage of advice on hard conversations. What is missing is somewhere to have one before it counts: spoken, with a person who reacts, where getting it wrong costs nothing.
The toolkit
The research on training managers for hard conversations keeps coming back to the same seven things. Steady is all seven, on a phone, for one person.
Step 01
Eight questions about how you handle these conversations, then a five-minute practice picked for your role. Your results put what you said about yourself next to what you actually did, including blind spots you would not have spotted.
Why it works: the research ›Step 02
Prepare, open, listen, stay on point, agree. Every practice gets feedback on each of the five steps, in words, never a score, based on what you actually did rather than whether you matched a template.
Why it works: the research ›
Step 03
No structure survives a conversation the other person does not feel safe in. One of twelve short courses is about exactly that: invite their view, stay calm when challenged, separate the problem from the person. Read, practise, then pass a short test.
Why it works: the research ›Step 04
You speak. She answers in a real voice, in the moment, and she holds her position. Her state is drawn above her and moves while you talk, so you can see how a sentence is taken while you are still saying it.
Why it works: the research ›Step 05
A single workshop fades within weeks. Steady works a week at a time: one topic a week (feedback, boundaries or saying no) and two short practices on it, on whichever days suit you. Every six weeks a progress check shows what has changed. When you have a real conversation coming up, Steady helps you prepare for it.
Why it works: the research ›Step 06
A first-time manager on her first performance problem needs different practice from a director on her fourth restructure. Your plan is six weeks, built from your starting check and the conversations people in your role find hardest. The one you have been avoiding comes first, you can swap a week's topic when something else is more pressing, and every practice is written for the field you work in.
Why it works: the research ›
Step 07
Not attendance, and not a completion rate. Progress comes from your practices: how long you take to get to the point, how often you soften what you say, how long you can hold a silence, and which blind spots have closed since your starting check.
Why it works: the research ›The five steps
01
Prepare
Know three things before you go in.
02
Opening
Say why you're here.
03
Listening
Listen more than you talk.
04
Staying on point
Stay kind, stay on the point.
05
Next steps
Agree what happens next.
What Steady won’t do
Skills built in a single session do not survive a real, emotional conversation. Steady is a six-week plan, a rhythm, and a check that comes round again.
Rigid scripts break the moment the other person goes off-book. The words stay yours. What comes back is what yours did.
Candour inside a blame-heavy culture sets you up to fail. Steady says so, and is clear about what it cannot fix.
Without follow-up, training decays. Steady prepares the real conversation with you, then asks how it went.
The evidence
Each of the seven tools stands on research about how managers actually get better at hard conversations. The studies are linked and labelled by how strong they are, including where the evidence stops.
Tool 01
A first reading, blind spots included.
3 findings ›
Tool 02
Five phases, every conversation.
6 findings ›
Tool 03
Twelve short courses, each with a test.
3 findings ›
Tool 04
A real voice that answers and holds its ground.
4 findings ›
Tool 05
One topic a week, two practices, your days.
4 findings ›
Tool 06
Six weeks, your role, your field.
5 findings ›
Tool 07
What has changed since your starting check.
4 findings ›
The honest note
Self-administered training is the weaker kind, and no framework beats the others. We say so.
The practice conversations
Each one is a person with a history, a position and a reason to resist. Choose how hard it goes, from gentle to realistic to tough, and the other person will surprise you in ways you won't see coming.
Feedback
Their work has slipped since you got promoted. You had drinks with them on Friday.
Jess is on the other side of this.
Feedback
Her work is technically fine and she has stopped bringing anything else.
Rachel is on the other side of this.
Feedback
Six weeks of it. Everyone has noticed. Your silence is now part of the problem.
Callum is on the other side of this.
Feedback
Your strongest performer is making two quieter people invisible.
Anya is on the other side of this.
Feedback
He thinks it went well. It did not.
Dominic is on the other side of this.
Feedback
He undermines you gently, in front of the team, in a way that is impossible to point at.
Brian is on the other side of this.
Feedback
Three weeks of silence between them. You're seeing one of them first.
Claire is on the other side of this.
Feedback
Twelve years the steady one. For the last month, he hasn't been.
Martin is on the other side of this.
Feedback
She asked last week. You said you'd come back to her properly.
Priya is on the other side of this.
Boundaries
He messages at all hours and expects an instant reply, because you always used to give one.
Tom is on the other side of this.
Boundaries
Oversharing, drinks invitations, and reading your management as coldness.
Sophie is on the other side of this.
Boundaries
He takes things straight to your boss, and copies you in afterwards.
Nathan is on the other side of this.
Boundaries
Your own boss drops work on you at the end of every week. Managing up is a boundary too.
Meera is on the other side of this.
Boundaries
For “just two weeks.”
Jonah is on the other side of this.
Boundaries
Your most dependable person said no before you'd asked.
Tariq is on the other side of this.
Saying no
Declining a project you cannot take, with reasons, without damaging the relationship.
Douglas is on the other side of this.
Saying no
She thinks she has earned it. The budget does not exist and it is not close.
Leila is on the other side of this.
Saying no
You want to say yes. You cannot.
Hannah is on the other side of this.
Saying no
You didn't decide it. You have to deliver it, and not throw your own leadership under the bus.
Ade is on the other side of this.
Saying no
The improvement plan has run its course. Today you tell him it's over.
Ryan is on the other side of this.
Saying no
Her team is moving under someone else. Tomorrow it's announced. Today she hears it from you.
Nadia is on the other side of this.
Saying no
The demo said it frees up 30% of the team's time. She wants to know whose.
Grace is on the other side of this.
Describe your real conversation. Who the other person is, what has happened, how you expect them to react. Steady sets up a practice with someone who reacts the way you said they would.
Your field
A ward manager should not have to practise with sprint reviews. Tell Steady where you work and all 22 practice conversations are rewritten for it: the handover, the Saturday floor walk, the pre-service briefing, the cover lesson. The person, their history and the way they push back stay exactly the same.
Ten of the fields also get eight practice conversations no other field has: the agency nurse and the handover sheet, the shift swapped on WhatsApp, the tip pool, the pitch that needs your Saturday.
Pricing
There is no crippled free tier. Seven days, everything open, and then you decide.
£59.99
a year · £5.00 a month · save 44%
Free for 7 days, then £59.99 a year. Cancel any time in Settings. Your own currency is shown in the app before you confirm.
What Steady Pro is
Your starting check
Where you stand, and the blind spots you might not see.
Every practice conversation for your field, an hour a week
Feedback, boundaries, saying no. Practise once, or eleven times.
Your plan and your Progress
Six weeks for your role, and what has changed since your starting check.
Step-by-step feedback and progress checks
Feedback on the five steps after every practice. A progress check every six weeks.
Bring your own situation
Describe the conversation you actually have coming up. Steady sets up a practice for it.
Take it back, compare practices, quick practice
Take back a line and say it differently. Put two practices side by side.
The self-check and the whole library are free, with or without Pro.
Steady is built for one manager and one phone. If you run a management programme and want this practice inside it, say hello. We are working out what the team version should be.
Questions
Eight questions about how you handle these conversations, then a five-minute practice picked for your role. Your results put your own answers next to what you actually did: what is working, what you might not be seeing, and where to start. One five-minute practice is a first look, not a verdict, and every practice after it adds to the picture.
No. There is no correct sentence and Steady never hands you one. It gives you a person who reacts to what you actually said, and afterwards it tells you what your own behaviour did: where you softened what you said, how long you took to get to the point, what happened right after you said “but.” The words stay yours.
It works best spoken, because speaking is the hard part. But you can type instead at any point, even halfway through a practice, if you would rather write.
First-time and newly promoted managers, most often people now managing colleagues who used to be their peers. If you have gone over a conversation in the shower more than twice, Steady is for you.
Yes. Tell Steady where you work and every practice is rewritten for it: 11 fields, from retail and hospitality to healthcare, schools, and operations. The person, their history and how they react stay the same; the ward, the shop floor or the kitchen is yours.
Your audio is never saved. It is processed as you speak and then it is gone. Transcripts stay on the phone, encrypted. When you name a real colleague, that name is replaced with a placeholder before anything is sent. There is no account, and one button in the You tab deletes all of it.
The self-check and the whole library are free. Everything else (the starting check, the practice conversations, step-by-step feedback, your plan, Progress and the checks) is 7 days free, then £59.99 a year or £8.99 a month. Cancel any time in Settings.
Steady is practice for work conversations, not therapy, not HR advice and not crisis support. If a practice turns towards something the app should not be handling, it stops and points you at people who can.
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