Scripts for navigating difficult conversations | Alisa Cohn (executive coach)

Executive coach Alisa Cohn shares word-for-word scripts for performance feedback, terminations, promotion denials, and the co-founder prenup questions that prevent startup breakups.

• 65% of startups fail due to co-founder conflict, per researcher Noam Wasserman — Cohn’s founder prenup is designed to prevent this.
• A leader’s job is not to make employees happy; avoiding hard feedback to prevent upset feelings directly causes company failure.
• One client’s direct report cried when finally given honest feedback, then said: I wish someone had told me this 15 years ago.
• Script for defensive reactions: name the energy shift, restate your intent to help their career, and explicitly offer to pause before continuing.
• Three meeting-closing questions and a personal operating manual (delegation style, pet peeves, gold-star behaviors) prevent unnecessary workplace conflict.
• Founder prenup covers five areas: values alignment, company vision (lifestyle vs. venture scale), conflict-handling style, decision-making process when disagreeing, and desired culture.
• Two co-founders five years in discovered one wanted fewer employees while the other wanted VC-scale growth — too late to reconcile after already taking venture funding.

2025-01-05 · Watch on YouTube