01
The role of the manager
We define, with leadership, what the company expects from anyone who leads a team. Written down, short, and true — not an aspirational poster.
Service
Leadership & People Management Routines
Management quality is the biggest source of variation in a growing company. Two teams doing similar work can have completely different experiences of goals, feedback and accountability — and the difference is almost never talent.
The problem
Signals you will recognise
- 01We have good managers, but each one manages their own way.
- 02What it is like to work here depends on who you report to.
- 03One-to-ones happen when there is time — which means rarely.
- 04People get promoted into management for being good technically, and nobody ever tells them what is now expected of them.
- 05Performance problems reach leadership without ever having been raised in the team.
How it works
What we do
02
The routines
One-to-ones, team meetings, goal setting and review, feedback and development conversations: which ones, how often, and what each is for.
03
Toolkit and training
Guides and templates for each routine, and training built on real cases from your company — including the difficult conversations.
04
Install and correct
We launch the routines, hold office hours through the first weeks, and adjust what real calendars reveal. A leadership cadence is added where company size justifies it.
Topics covered
- Manager expectations
- One-to-ones
- Team meetings
- Feedback
- Accountability
- Manager toolkit
Deliverables
- The role of the manager: what the company expects, in writing
- Leadership principles, connected to the values
- The management routines: one-to-ones, team meetings, goal cycle
- A manager toolkit: guides, templates and examples for each routine
- A guide for the difficult conversations — feedback, underperformance, development
- Manager training on real cases
- A leadership cadence, where company size justifies it
Typical outcome
Management quality stops depending on which manager you happened to get. Everyone has the same experience of goals, feedback and follow-up, whichever team they are on.
Six to ten weeks, with scope and price fixed before we start.
How it is delivered
01
Diagnose
02
Benchmark and principles
03
Design
04
Validate
05
Implement
06
Support
Often relevant for
Questions we are asked
Training is the last phase of it. First we build the system — expectations, routines, tools — and then we train people on that system. Training without the system is why the last programme changed nothing.
Most resistance is to vagueness, not to management. When the expectation is concrete and the routine takes an hour they can see the point of, most managers come along. The few who genuinely refuse become visible — which is information the company needs.
It is where it works best. A first-time manager with clear routines outperforms an experienced one improvising.
The routines are what make the cycle liveable: a manager who holds one-to-ones does not discover problems at review time. Bought together or separately, the two are designed to fit.
Your company has changed. Has your organisation caught up?
The People Diagnostic establishes where the organisation is constrained, and what to fix first.