Workshops on managing strategy and practices in 2024
Here's the management training and education you've been looking for
I’ve been trying to figure out a) how to create a container for a series of live workshops on the management strategies and processes I teach managers and HR people to do, that would be accessible for people who don’t have huge budgets, but would still be doable for me, and b) what to do to get the real value out of the “paid subscriber” function here on Substack. It literally came to me in a dream a few weeks ago, so here it is:
Becoming a paid subscriber of Good Management Practices is now a membership that gives you access to a live online workshop every month. These workshops are aimed at managers in bigger orgs, small business owners who are managing people as employees or part-time help, HR people who train and support managers, and anyone else who supports managers in a work organization. Show up for the workshop (or watch the recording) and follow along with me, and you’ll identify needs specific to your situation, create strategy to address the needs, and then create processes/practices to get things running in a sustainable way that increases team transparency, cohesion, and satisfaction.
If I was marketing these workshops directly to managers/HR people as standalones, I’d charge $100-150 per workshop, but I’m pricing the entire 12-workshop yearly subscription at $120 (or $12 per month for the monthly subscription). If you work for someone else, this should be reimbursible as an educational training expense, and if you work for yourself it’s deductible as a subscription/membership/educational material expense. There’s a group discount, and if you need to buy access for more than 50 people, let’s talk.
And now, the actual workshops:
January: What's the main task of managing for your team? Teaching, directing, facilitating, protecting, documenting, or something else. The manager's role for any given team in any given organization varies, and you can be doing a great job doing one thing but if it's not what your team needs, you can be doing the best job poossible and still fail. Come to this session to learn how to identify what the main task(s) are for your team inside your org.
January 25, Thursday, 8 am PST, 11 am EST, 4 pm GMT
February: Managing well runs on dopamine, not adrenaline. Popular culture tells us the opposite. Come to this session to learn how to reorient your view of what managing is supposed to feel like and how managing well uses less energy than managing poorly-but-dramatically does, and how to build in practices for yourself as a manager that reward staying on track.
February 22, Thursday, 8 am PST, 11 am EST, 4 pm GMT
March: Communication is the core function of an effective team. Set up communications processes so nothing falls through the cracks and your team builds in the routine of transparency and cooperation. Come to this session to find out how to set up direct processes to keep track of and make use of the information that otherwise wouldn't have a place to be until it causes a crisis.
March 28, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 3 pm GMT
April: Run a one-on-one weekly session with each of your team members. Managers are all supposed to do these (allegedly)! No one is taught how to do them effectively! They can be a dreaded waste of time! Running an effective one-on-one is not hard at all, but it's a process, so come to this session and learn how to create a solid, simple agenda for a one-on-one that you won't dread.
April 25, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
May: The manager creates the culture and sets the tone of the entire team. Come to this session to learn how to figure out what you want the culture and tone of your team to be within your larger organization, and how to create what you want and make it psychologically safe for your team members.
May 23, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
June: Undermanaging happens when you don't know or recognize that you're the one who has to take charge of a situation or team, and it can destroy trust and cause people to leave your team. Come to this session to recognize undermanaging in yourself or other managers and create a plan to wean yourself onto healthier managing behaviors that create team cohesiveness.
June 27, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
July: Overmanaging and micromanaging happen when people don't trust their own management skills and processes and manage out of fear. It's a vicious circle because it creates incentives for team members to detach from managers and the entire job, andeventually quit entirely. Come to this session to learn how to create structures and feeback loops that allow you to engage in healthier managing behaviors that will keep your team members engaged and satisfied.
July 25, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
August: Read the room and set up processes and policies for success, including not undoing a whole year of good will in the last month of the year. The choices the manager makes about logistics, policies, and actions can guide team members into effective, prosocial behaviors or into chaos and obstruction. Come to this session to learn how to create work processes that channel people into better behavior and morale.
August 22, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
September: You as part of the ecosystem of your organization. It's really easy to tell people to "manage up," but to be able to do that effectively you have to be able to tell where you and your team are in the entire organizational ecosystem, and what advocating for yourself and your team mean in context. Come to this session to learn how to assess where you are and how you're seen in your org, and to make a plan for advocating for yourself and your team and a whole and individually.
September 26, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
October: Set up the new year with your team. What if everyone on your team was ready to jump in in January, excited about being back at work, feeling energized by new projects and goals and satisfied by progress on existing projects? Come to this session to learn how to manage the planning process with your team so well that they take ownership and share leadership of the new year of working together.
October 24, Thursday, 8 am PDT, 11 am EDT, 4 pm BST
November: Problem solving. It's the nature of work that things will go wrong or tasks won't be what you assumed they'd be. Come to this session to learn how to set up a standardized process of problem solving for and in your team so that you can use all the other processes you've been using to assess the situation and cooperate to knock out the problem.
November 21, Thursday, 8 am PST, 11 am EST, 4 pm GMT
December: Create an operations manual. Once you're on a regular communication schedule with your team, the majority of the problems you'll have are because there are gaps in your workflow that no one's awware of and that don't have owners. Creating an operations manual for your team will fix all that. Come to this session to find out how to create a comprehensive, accurate flow for your entire team and turn that into an operations manual and use that to eliminate obstacles and unforced errors.
December 19, Thursday, 8 am PST, 11 am EST, 4 pm GMT
You'll come out of every workshop with some strategy and tactics specific to your situation, and with actual next steps to do the next day when you log in or show up to work.
I'm happy to be giving so much direct value to subscribers in such a simple model that doesn’t add more tasks to your list. Just show up, pay attention, and walk out with a plan that lightens your load.
To induce people to sign up right now, I’m giving a 20% discount (good for a year on both the yearly and monthly subscription plan) through January 24, 2024. (This line will disappear from this post on January 25.) Click through this link to sign up with the discount: https://pecsenye.substack.com/workfriend
Love,
Magda Pecsenye Zarin
Wow this series looks amazing, I’m so looking forward to participating!