For first-time managers
You got promoted. Nobody gave you a manual.
Practical guides, honest answers, and free tools that put a number on what feels off. Built for the manager who is Googling this at 11pm.
Contents
The manual nobody gave you
- New Manager Transition 7
- First 90 Days as Manager 8
- Difficult Conversations 6
- 1-on-1 Meetings 5
- Hiring & Onboarding 10
- Team Trust & Culture 12
- Goal Setting & Results 6
- Managing Up 5
- AI for Managers 6
- Stress & Wellbeing 5
- Performance Management 6
- Leadership Skills 9
- Team Building & Engagement 7
- Remote & Hybrid Teams 4
Tools inside
Free. No email, no account.
Every one of those is free, and none of them ask for your email.
The question every manager asks
Am I a good manager?
Your own feeling measures your stress. Your team being pleasant measures nothing. This measures the five things they actually experience: direction, feedback, delegation, trust, and growth.
Results include your weakest dimension, not just a score.
Three ways in
Everything you wish someone had told you on day one.
Read the guide
Step by step on feedback, 1-on-1s, difficult conversations, hiring, delegation. No theory, no filler, just what works on Monday.
Browse 96 guides →Put a number on it
Calculators for the things that feel expensive but never get measured: meetings, turnover, micromanagement, your own time.
Open the tools →Get the wording
Guides explain the thinking. The toolkits hand you the scripts and templates: the conversation you are putting off, the first 90 days, the 1-on-1 you keep improvising.
Browse the toolkits →What makes this place different
Most advice tells you it matters. These tell you what it costs.
48 calculators, built because "this feels like a waste of time" is easy to dismiss and a dollar figure is not.
Meeting Cost
What is that recurring meeting actually costing you per year?
Promotion Readiness
Is this person ready for the next level, or would promoting now set them up to fail?
Employee Turnover Cost
What it really costs when someone leaves, hiring and lost output included.
Manager's Time Budget
Where your week actually goes, and what is left for the work only you can do.
Browse by topic
What's new across the site
The six most recently updated topics, one fresh piece each. Find where you are stuck.
You Are Not Comparing Two People. You Are Comparing One of Them to a Summary.
Performance ManagementTop 5 Books on Performance Management (That Disagree With Each Other)
Hiring & OnboardingContractor or Employee? You Do Not Actually Get to Choose.
Team Trust & CultureExit Interviews Are the Wrong Tool at the Wrong Time. Here Are 12 Questions That Still Work.
Goal Setting & ResultsOKRs vs KPIs vs SMART Goals: You Are Comparing Three Different Things
Team Building & EngagementQuick Team Building for Meetings: 15 Activities Under 10 Minutes
Real question, real answer
Every article here started with someone stuck.
I need to tell someone on my team their work isn't good enough, but I'm terrified of destroying our relationship. How do I even start that conversation?
Asked anonymously, like every question here
The article it became
How to Have Difficult Conversations as a New Manager (Without Making It Worse)
Read the full answer →Is this for you?
If you recognize yourself here, you are in the right place.
01
You just got promoted.
Yesterday you were writing code, designing campaigns, or closing deals. Today you are responsible for people, and nobody explained how that works.
"You are not failing. You just have not been taught yet."
02
You are hiring your first employee.
You built something from nothing and it outgrew one person. Now there is a job post to write, interviews to run, and suddenly you are someone’s boss.
"You need a guide, not a 400-page HR manual."
03
You have managed for a while, untrained.
You got the title a year or two ago and figured it out alone. It mostly works, but you know where the gaps are, and you are ready to close them.
"Mostly working is not the same as knowing how."
The letters · Free
Fifty two weeks is enough time to get good at this.
One letter a month for a year. Each one takes something that is probably happening to you right now, explains why it happens, and gives you one thing to do about it this week.
Want the whole picture first? See what the letters cover.
Start with the next one.
Your first letter arrives at the start of next month.