Manager training
Manager Fundamentals.
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An eight-session training program for the frontline managers who run support, success, implementation and operations at SaaS and AI companies. Forty-five minutes a week, live, plus about thirty minutes of homework on their own team. Every session ends with something they use that week.
The job people sell you is the engine rebuild. Most of it is oil changes.
Most managers get the job because they were great at the work. Then the output changes. Before, it was tickets closed, first response time, renewal rate, quota. After, it's what the team produced. Hardly anyone hands over a manual for that: in West Monroe's survey of 500 US managers, 59% of those overseeing one or two people had received no managerial training at all.
Manager Fundamentals is that manual, taught live. Eight sessions, each built around a real part of the job and a real artifact the manager builds for their own team that week. The part that isn't a skill gets said out loud too: you're no longer trying to be the best at the work. You're trying to get the best work out of other people.
The backbone
Keep The SCORE. Earn The TRUST.
Management is making sure the right work gets done. That’s the science: delegation, output, KPIs, OKRs, reporting, milestones, job descriptions, salary bands, budget and career paths. Leadership is making sure people want to do it. That’s the art: vision, buy-in, empowerment, trust, growth, advocacy and culture. Most managers lean on one side. Every session works on one or more of the ten letters, so they build the other.
| Keep The SCORE: management | Earn The TRUST: leadership |
|---|---|
| Standards. What good looks like. | Trajectory. Where we’re going, and whether your team can say it back. |
| Capacity. Who has bandwidth. | Reason. Why it matters, so you get buy-in and not compliance. |
| Outcomes. The numbers. | Understanding. Knowing your people individually. |
| Resources. Budget, headcount, tools and time. | Support. Going to bat for them. |
| Execution. Whether the work gets done, and what happens when it doesn’t. | Tone. The room feels how you feel. |
The curriculum
Eight sessions. Eight things your managers use.
Session 01
The Job Is Different Now. A Manager Charter covering what you own, what you decide and what you escalate, plus a baseline time audit.
Session 02
The Job Description Is The Spine. A ten-part role doc, an outcome-based job description, and an AI prompt that drafts the first version.
Session 03
Accountability And Operational Efficiency. A one-page team scorecard and a queue review agenda.
Session 04
The Team Priority Matrix. Every person on the team placed on the matrix, with a thirty-day plan for each.
Session 05
Delegation And Capacity. An SOP library and a delegation register, plus the 70-20-10 capacity framework.
Session 06
The Conversations Managers Avoid. A structured one-on-one log and feedback drafts in the SBI format, plus a short script for questions about pay.
Session 07
Hiring And Interviewing. A complete interview kit, built from the Session 02 role doc.
Session 08
Performance Management And Separations. A performance improvement plan template, an offboarding checklist and a career path that ties back to the Session 02 ramp.
How it runs
Forty-five minutes a week, on their own team.
- Not recorded. Concepts leave the room. Who said what doesn’t.
- About thirty minutes of homework a week, done on your own team.
- Not a webinar, so you’ll be asked to talk.
- Built to give managers the tools and the mental shift.
- Mixed on purpose. A manager with eight years in the seat and someone not yet promoted can learn in the same cohort.
Formats
Three ways to run it.
The 8-week cohort.
The full program for 6 to 12 of your managers: eight live sessions, one a week, with all eight artifacts, a baseline and a week-eight re-measure, and an executive readout. It's the version that changes behavior, because each session lands on real work before the next one starts.
The full-day intensive.
Sessions 01 to 04 in one day, for 4 to 12 managers. They leave with a Manager Charter, a role doc, a team scorecard, and every person on their team placed on the Team Priority Matrix with a thirty-day plan. A follow-up at day thirty checks what actually moved.
The half-day intensive.
Sessions 01 and 04 in about three and a half hours: the Manager Charter, and the Team Priority Matrix with a thirty-day plan for every person. Also followed up at day thirty. It's the fastest way to see whether the full program fits your team.
Why the spacing matters: a meta-analysis of 335 studies found leadership training increased on-the-job leadership behavior by 28%, and that spaced sessions, practice and feedback were each linked to stronger results (Lacerenza et al., Journal of Applied Psychology, 2017; the percentage is the paper's own percentile-based conversion). For leadership teams there's also a 60-minute briefing on what untrained managers cost your company. See the page for CEOs.
AI does the admin. Managers make the calls.
Every session comes with a copy-paste prompt that builds that week's artifact, plus a set of Standing Orders managers paste at the start of every AI session. They set the AI's role and its limits. Think of it as an administrative staff officer: it turns hours of admin into minutes. It doesn't make people decisions.
Three rules travel with every prompt that touches people data. use company-approved ai tools only; use placeholder names for employees; route anything touching performance, pay or separation through hr.
Measurement
Measured against their own baseline.
- Each manager is measured against their own baseline, not the group average. The cohort is mixed on purpose, so averages wouldn’t mean anything.
- A baseline time audit in Session 01 shows where each manager’s week actually goes.
- Every person on each team is placed on the Team Priority Matrix in week one and again in week eight. Movement on the grid is the result.
- A week-eight readout turns the baseline and the re-measure into an executive summary.
Go deeper
Pick the page for your seat.
For CEOs and COOs
What untrained managers cost you in escalations, turnover, rework and waiting, and how the program lowers it. Read the page for CEOs.
For HR and People leaders
How the program is designed, measured and kept on the right side of HR, including the rule for AI and employee data. Read the page for HR.
The curriculum
All eight sessions, what each one covers, and the artifact every manager leaves with. See the curriculum.
The frameworks
SCORE and TRUST, What You Own Now and the Role Doc, published in full so you can use them before you ever talk to us. Browse the frameworks.
Fit
This works when it fits.
Works well when
- You're a SaaS or AI company of roughly 20 to 200 people, with at least four managers.
- Your managers were promoted for being great at the work, and nobody taught them the next job.
- Escalations keep landing on you or your senior leaders.
- You want progress measured against a baseline, not a satisfaction score.
- Your managers can protect forty-five minutes a week, plus the homework on their own team.
Works badly when
- You want a one-time motivational talk. This is practice, not a keynote.
- Nobody will make time for the homework, which is where the program actually works.
- You need it recorded for on-demand viewing. It's live and unrecorded on purpose.
- You're looking for a substitute for HR. It works alongside HR, and people decisions stay with people.
Questions
Asked before, answered plainly.
Frontline managers of customer-facing and operations teams at SaaS and AI companies: support, customer success, implementation, professional services and ops. New managers and experienced ones can sit in the same cohort, because each person is measured against their own baseline, not against each other.
Forty-five minutes a week, live, for eight weeks, plus about thirty minutes of homework each week. The homework is done on the manager's own team, so it's the job itself, not extra reading.
No. Concepts leave the room. Who said what doesn't. That's what lets managers talk about the real situations they're dealing with, which is where the learning happens.
Yes, as a full-day or half-day intensive built on the first sessions, with a follow-up at day thirty to check what moved. The eight-week cohort is still the version we recommend, because sessions spaced over weeks, with real work in between, are what change behavior.
As an administrative staff officer. Each session comes with a prompt that drafts that week's artifact, and a set of Standing Orders that set the AI's role and limits. Managers use company-approved tools only, with placeholder names for employees. Anything touching performance, pay or separation goes through HR, never through AI.
It's built and taught by an operator, around the work your managers actually run: queues, escalations, handoffs, hiring and the conversations people avoid. Every session produces something the manager uses that week, and progress is measured against a baseline rather than a satisfaction survey.
The first outside cohorts start in January 2027. Join the interest list and you'll hear first when dates are set.