New managers are usually given a course on process and then left to work out the hard parts on real people. This series uses activities as rehearsal space: directing without authority, listening without fixing, deciding under scarcity, and saying the uncomfortable thing first. It is deliberately not a course.
The schedule
-
Session 1, 90 min
Directing something when you cannot do it yourself
Roles rotate every five minutes so everyone is Looker and Builder. The debrief is about the one-way channel: every new manager has one in their team and most have not noticed it.
-
Session 2, 90 min
Listening without fixing
The trio variation, with an observer giving feedback on the listening. The no-advice-for-six-minutes rule is the hardest thing in this series for most new managers and the most useful.
-
Session 3, 90 min
Deciding when you cannot have everything
The pre-auction strategy discussion is the content. Afterwards, ask each person what their first purchase says about what they will protect when their own team is under pressure.
-
Session 4, 90 min
Going first on the uncomfortable thing
Each participant presents their own. The transferable skill is specific: a leader who names a failure plainly changes what a room believes is permitted, and this is where they practise it.
-
Session 5, 90 min
Finding out what your team is not telling you
Each manager runs a pre-mortem on their own real project, with the cohort as the team. They facilitate it themselves; the group gives feedback on the facilitation afterwards.
-
Session 6, 90 min
Removing something instead of adding something
Run on the cohort's own teams. Everyone leaves having cancelled one thing. Ending the series on a subtraction rather than a new initiative is the point, and it is the lesson most new managers are never taught.
What it looks like when it is working
- In session five, at least one manager's pre-mortem surfaces something they genuinely had not considered.
- Participants start running these sessions with their own teams without being asked.
- Six months on, the cohort still talks to each other — which is usually worth more than any individual session.
Things that are hard to recover from
- Keep the cohort to twelve. Above that the sessions become demonstrations rather than practice.
- Nothing said in these sessions may be a performance input, and that has to be stated at the start of every session and honoured absolutely. One breach ends the series' usefulness permanently.
- Do not mix managers with their own direct reports in the same cohort.