Management workshop · Two half days
Nobody is promoted for being good at managing. They are promoted for being good at the job.
Two half days with your managers, on getting the best from a team, handling conflict before it hardens, and the conversations everyone avoids.
Why this exists
Your managers decide whether people stay. Most were handed the job and left to work it out.
They were excellent at the work, so they were given a team. Then the work changed completely and nobody said so. The good ones improvise their way to competent and carry a quiet anxiety about it. The struggling ones avoid the difficult conversation until it becomes a resignation.
This is expensive in ways that never appear on a report. Good people leaving. Underperformance tolerated for a year. Two team members who stopped speaking in April and a manager hoping it resolves itself.
Two half days will not produce a qualification. They will produce managers who know what good looks like, have practised the hard parts out loud, and have a way of handling next week.
What your managers leave with
Practised, not just explained.
- A shared definition of the job. What management means in your business specifically, so five managers stop running five different companies.
- The difficult conversation, rehearsed. Underperformance, attitude, a missed deadline that keeps getting missed. Said out loud in the room, with feedback.
- A way to handle conflict early. Before it becomes a grievance, a resignation, or a team that quietly splits into two.
- Their own commitments, written down. Each manager leaves with what they will change, specifically, and when you will check.
You also get a written summary of the themes that came up, anonymised where it matters. Some of what surfaces in a room like this is about the managers. Some of it is about the business, and worth you knowing.
The agenda
Two half days, with real situations from your business.
We ask each manager beforehand what they are actually struggling with, and build the sessions around those answers.
Day one · The job, and the people in it
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01
What the job actually is
The shift from doing the work to being accountable for other people doing it. Where your managers are still doing the old job because it is the comfortable one, and what that costs the team below them.
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02
Getting the best from different people
Why the approach that works on one person lands badly on another. Reading what someone needs, delegating without either abandoning or hovering, and knowing which of the two you default to under pressure.
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03
Expectations and feedback
Most underperformance is a manager who never said clearly what good looked like. Setting expectations people can actually meet, and giving feedback often enough that it stops being an event.
Day two · The hard parts
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04
The conversation you have been avoiding
Every manager arrives with one. We structure it, practise it in the room, and take the fear out of the opening sentence, which is the part that actually stops people.
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05
Conflict, early
Spotting it while it is still awkwardness rather than damage. Handling a disagreement between two people you both manage, and what to do when one of them is more valuable than the other and everybody knows it.
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06
Managing through change and pressure
Holding a team together when the workload is unreasonable, the strategy shifted again, or a decision came down that your manager privately disagrees with. Honest without being disloyal, which is the balance nobody teaches.
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07
Commitments
One change each, specific, with a date. Said out loud to the room, because a commitment made in front of your peers is the only kind that survives a busy fortnight.
How we run it
Safe enough to be honest. Not so safe that nothing happens.
Managers will not admit to struggling in front of their own boss. So we normally run these sessions without the leadership team in the room, and report themes back rather than who said what. If you want to be there, we will talk about what that changes.
It is practical throughout. Real situations from your business, worked through properly, rather than a model on a slide and a case study about an airline. Everyone talks. Nobody spends two half days listening.
And it works for mixed rooms. A first-time manager six weeks in and someone who has run teams for fifteen years get different things from the same session, which is usually the point.
Practicalities
The questions you were going to ask.
- Format
- Two half days, ideally a week or so apart so managers can try something with their team in between and bring back what happened.
- Who should be there
- Anyone who has people reporting to them, including the ones who would not describe themselves as managers. Six to twelve is the right size. Above that, everyone stops talking.
- Preparation
- A short conversation with each manager beforehand about what they are finding hard. It is confidential, and it is what makes the sessions specific rather than generic.
- What you get afterwards
- Each manager's written commitments, and a summary of the themes for you, anonymised where it needs to be.
- Investment
- Quoted per workshop, based on the number of managers and the preparation involved. You will have the number before you have to ask twice.
- Does it work remotely
- Yes, with smaller groups. The rehearsal sessions are better in person, so if your team can be in one room, do that.
Contact
Tell us what is happening with your team.
Thirty minutes, no charge. If a workshop is not what you need, we will say so.