training materials

About Our Training Materials

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We know how hard it can be to find great manager training resources.  There’s a lot of options out there, but they’re often not the right fit or too expensive (or both).  We wanted to change that.

We spoke to hundreds of managers, learning and development professionals, and People/HR teams about the most pressing challenges facing new managers and how they can learn to overcome them. 

We collected these insights into the New Manager Playbook and these supporting training resources.

The playbook is structured into 8 sprints to get new managers up to speed across eight key areas, using an engaging approach which combines content, action plans, and peer/coaching discussions. 

The eight areas are:

  • Alignment & Managing Up: how to work with your boss and other senior leaders to understand each others’ priorities, stay informed, and succeed together.
  • Getting 1:1s Right: how to get the most out of 1:1s with your team, from getting started to building a habit that helps both of you in your roles.
  • Career Development: how to have great career conversations with your team, and best support them in achieving their aspirations. 
  • Achieving Results: how to build a high-performance team, and diagnose/solve issues with underperformance.
  • Feedback: how to give constructive feedback, build on positive feedback, and create a better feedback culture within your team.
  • Communication: how you can improve your communication, with three case studies on specific communication scenarios. 
  • Delegation: Learn practical techniques for understanding when and how to delegate to more effectively manage your team.
  • Managing Yourself: Understand where the pressures of the role come from and how you can balance them with all your other responsibilities.

Focus on First-Time Managers

While more experienced managers may find lots to learn here, the intended audience is managers in their first 0-6 months in the role. 

This is deliberate.  We believe this is a unique transition in the workplace, and the challenges faced by a new manager are different compared to those who have spent more time leading a team.  This focus defines the topics we cover, and the advice we offer, and means we can be as helpful as possible to new managers.

Concise, Written Format

The training materials are in concise, digestible, written format, full of practical tips and advice.  They include suggested actions to put each learning into practice, and recommendations for further resources if manager’s want to go deeper on any subject.

We know that many training courses use videos.  In our experience, first-time managers don’t have the time to watch training videos, and written materials give managers a great resource to easily check back on for future reference.  They’re also more easily adaptable into presentations, and discussions.

How to use these resources

The materials are designed to work within the Playbook’s structure, but they’re also the most concise advice you’ll find anywhere on these 8 areas of new manager development. 

Any purchase of the materials comes with a perpetual license to adapt them for use in your own organization, however you want - whether you choose to use the Playbook or not.  If you’re working on a manager development program, we guarantee they’ll save you time and money.

Let us Know What you Think

We know everyone’s approach to being a manager is different.  It’s an individual experience which reflects your personality, your team, and your workplace.  

Even with our best efforts, we know that not all our advice will reflect everyone’s lived experience, and to provide concise, practical advice we must summarize and simplify. 

We want these materials to be the best resources available for first-time managers.  As we discover more techniques and advice we think will be useful, we will continue to update them.  If you spot significant omissions or have feedback, please let us know.

Further Resources

These materials are built on the fantastic work done by many others in this field, including Camille Fournier, Lara Hogan, Kim Scott, Julie Zhuo, Molly Graham, Andy Grove, and many others.  

For a full list of other resources we recommend for first-time managers, see here.