How to build strong teams and partnerships in times of change
The Manager’s Playbook
Learn the coaching and conflict resolution skills you need to level up your team, navigate your org, and thrive as a manager.
Join the waitlist to get notified when our next cohort is scheduled.
Program cost: $649 per person
Every day, teams have a choice: to come together or fall apart. And right now? Way too many are falling apart.
Some are running in circles after a reorg or layoff, trying to follow vague feedback from their managers to “demonstrate more impact.” Others are stuck on defense, treating cross-functional partners like enemies instead of peers. And still others are covering up their dissatisfaction with fake smiles and thumbs-up emojis.
As a manager or lead, you have a choice to make: You can let these issues fester and watch people backchannel, backbite, and burn out. Or you can use this moment to build connection and collaboration—both within your team and across your org.
That’s why we created the Manager’s Playbook—a workshop series for emerging and established leaders who are ready to have more fulfilling and productive relationships with their team members, peers, and partners.
Ask your boss
Convince your company to pay for your registration. Share this program overview with your boss.
What you’ll learn
The Manager’s Playbook will leave you with powerful coaching, communication, and relationship skills to help you lead up, down, and across with less stress and more success. You’ll learn how to:
Lead feedback and performance conversations with candor and care
Hold coaching conversations that help your team get unstuck (without adding more to your plate)
Align your team around shared goals and values
Deepen connection and influence with your partners
Resolve cross-functional challenges and misalignments
Over four weeks together, you’ll get eight hours of hands-on training and practice in the core skills you need to build a culture of trust, collaboration, and engagement in your org.
By the end of this program, you’ll feel confident setting clear and fair performance expectations, coaching your team through challenges, giving difficult feedback, and finding common ground with partners and leaders (even when you disagree). You’ll leave knowing that even during challenging times, you have what it takes to say the hard things that will help everyone move forward… together.
“I can’t express enough gratitude for Sara and Jen’s approach to coaching managers to become transformative leaders… Coming out of each workshop, I was immediately able to take what I learned and start having the authentic conversations I always wanted to have, but felt too awkward to initiate. The workshop format is also fun, energetic, and uplifting. If you’re tired of feeling burnt out and worn down managing a team, the Manager’s Playbook is for you.”
—Jake Mitchell, product design manager
“The Manager's Playbook is the manager's training I wish I had taken years ago.
While I got a refresh on traditional concepts such as ‘how to have better 1 on 1s,’ the Manager’s Playbook is a lot about problem solving in the moment and finding your personal voice as a leader. Take it and commit to putting in the work—it is crucial investment for your career and building better workplaces.”
—Clara Kuo, user research leader
Program schedule
The program includes three 2.5-hour workshops, followed by a private coaching session with either Jen or Sara. Here’s what we’ll cover in each workshop:
WORKSHOP 1
Manager foundations
Coaching skills for building trust, alignment, and performance on your team
Learn the most transformative skills in the manager’s toolkit: self-awareness, curiosity, and listening. Then learn how to use those skills to build trust and coach your team to greater growth and autonomy.
WORKSHOP 2
Hard conversations
How to navigate feedback, conflict, and cross-functional challenges as a manager
Learn how to use coaching skills to build trust, inspire growth, give feedback, and create clear expectations with your team—even in times of change.
SYNTHESIS
1:1 coaching session
Put your learning into practice with a private coaching session with Jen or Sara
Get personal support putting these tools into action with a 30-minute, 1:1 coaching session with Sara or Jen. We’ll give you a range of options so you can book a time that works for you.
“Since participating in this course, I’ve referred to the Playbook multiple times to guide my team and provide them with practical methods to enhance their work relationships. The coaching session and cohort served as an excellent platform to understand and learn from others’ experiences, and I’m thrilled to be part of this new support network.”
—Jennifer Jericho, design manager
“Sara and Jen provided a well-structured and safe space to not only learn in, but also practice our new skills as we went along. I’m now less likely to jump in and fix a problem if my team come to me and instead have the skills and tools to better help them find their own answers. It’s been a rewarding and productive shift!”
—Rachel Caldwell, content design lead
What to expect
Who should join
This program is primarily designed for managers and team leads—and those who hope to become managers. However, the relationship and communication skills we’ll teach are applicable for anyone who’d like to build their coaching, communication, and relationship-building skills.
Have questions about this program or whether it’s right for you or your team? Email us!
What’s included
2 half-day workshops (4 hours each)
Each workshop is 4 hours long, and includes a mix of instruction, breakout activities, practice sessions, and coaching from Jen and Sara (plus breaks!).
1 private coaching session
To close out the program, you’ll also receive a 30-minute, 1:1 coaching session with Sara or Jen to synthesize what you’ve learned and make an action plan. You can also practice your new skills with us and get feedback live.
Digital workbook
The workbook pairs with our live sessions and coaching session. It’s packed with activities and self-reflections to guide your progress, plus tools you can use after the program ends.
Private Slack channel
Connect with your cohort, DM Sara or Jen, and take part in the full Active Voice Slack community—a supportive, welcoming space filled with people who share our vision of building bold leaders and better workplaces in design and tech.
Join the waitlist
Sign up to get notified (and an early-bird discount!) when our next cohort is scheduled.
We’re currently planning to run our next session in Q3 of 2024. If you have specific scheduling requests, let us know—we’ll use them to decide the timing for the next cohort.
Program pricing: $649 per person
Meet your facilitators
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Active Voice CEO
Sara founded Active Voice in 2020. Before that, she built her career in content design and UX, and is known for her work on ethics and responsibility in the tech industry. Her work in the field taught her the value of having hard conversations, and her training as a coach—including both team coaching and trauma-informed coaching—taught her how to have those conversations with candor, care, and self-awareness.
Jen Dionisio
Director of coaching programs
Before becoming a coach, Jen spent her career building and leading content teams—most recently, scaling up a content strategy practice from 5 people to 25 people in a year. Jen loves supporting the career growth of her reports and mentees, managing managers, and helping new managers establish a leadership style authentic to their values and core strengths.
Created by Active Voice
Bold leaders. Better workplaces.
Since 2020, we’ve been helping people in design and tech understand who they are and how they lead—so they can speak up with confidence, build team resilience, and navigate challenges with ease.
We’re a tiny company with big ideas about how to change work—for good. And we can’t wait to get to know you. Learn more about us.
Learn to lead up, down, and across with less stress and more success.
Don’t miss the next cohort of the Manager’s Playbook.