We don't add work for managers. We raise the impact of the work they already do.
Most managers were promoted for their expertise, not for working with people. Nobody prepared them for the hardest part of the role. And when they're swamped, the first thing they push aside is the conversations with their people. The team reads it as indifference, and the best ones one day get up and leave.
We don't teach managers to be coaches. That only fills them with dread and a sense of more work piled on top. We teach them to be coach-like in the conversations they already hold anyway. A boss tells, a coach asks. And that difference decides whether people stay.
Five weeks, five chapters
It's five weeks in which the manager actually works. Every chapter has its own worksheets, one concrete step into practice, and at the end a conversation with a coach at a time you choose.
The material
The manager gets the worksheets for the chapter and goes through them at their own pace, not under pressure.
A step into practice
One concrete step with their own team. Not an exercise for the drawer, but a conversation they were meant to have anyway.
The conversation with a coach
An hour one on one about what actually happened. You pick the time, around your own calendar.
The pace adapts. When a manager has a packed week, the chapter waits. The program runs for five weeks, but we don't turn it into another deadline.
Leadership doesn't change in a training room. It changes in the Monday conversation a manager runs differently than the week before. That's why for five weeks I keep asking what actually happened.
Open a chapter to see what the manager does in it
What it covers
- A self-assessment: five contrasts between a boss and a coach in everyday leadership.
- Three pillars for every conversation: strengths, engagement, performance.
- Permission to be the boss sometimes. This isn't about pure coaching.
Worksheets
- Boss, or coach (self-assessment)
- My management style through my talents
Step into practice
- Notice all week how many of your conversations you lead as a boss and how many as a coach.
What it covers
- The quick connect: three questions in order. The person first, then the work, then the support.
- Five elements of a meaningful conversation, including why 5 to 15 minutes is enough.
- Engagement is a contact sport. A few minutes a week, but regularly.
Worksheets
- Quick connect (pocket card)
- The map of my conversations
Step into practice
- One quick connect with every member of the team during the week.
What it covers
- How to read the talents of team members and what follows from them for leadership.
- A strengths conversation one on one. Start with your stars and your newcomers.
- Questions tailored to what the person has up top.
Worksheets
- Strengths conversation (1:1)
- Questions based on a member's talents
- Johari window (the manager relationship)
Step into practice
- One deeper conversation about talents with one member of the team.
What it covers
- The check-in: four questions plus a layer of strengths.
- Four manager hats: when to coach, when to name it, when to advise. And always close coach-like.
- An engagement framework for managers: which one or two behaviors to do more deliberately.
Worksheets
- The check-in conversation
- Four hats
- Manager behaviors (cheat sheet)
Step into practice
- One check-in closed with the question: what will you do next?
What it covers
- The four needs people have from leadership: hope, trust, compassion, stability.
- Hope as a discipline: everyday steps that make the direction clear.
- An action plan, a public commitment, and a ritual that holds after the program ends.
Worksheets
- The four team needs × my talents
- My plan as a manager-coach
Step into practice
- Set your cadence of conversations and pick one need you'll start feeding deliberately.
Per manager. Includes the CliftonStrengths 34 assessment, an official Czech report, twelve worksheets, five conversations with a certified Gallup coach, and a follow-up program afterwards: we don't end at the last chapter.
What stays with a manager once the program ends
The program isn't an experience for one afternoon. This is what a manager walks away with, on paper and in their head.
Their own talent profile
The official CliftonStrengths 34 assessment and a report in Czech. Not a generic typology, but the order of all 34 talents for that one person.
Twelve worksheets
Printed sheets for every chapter. They stay with the manager for good, including the questions they can pull out before any conversation.
Questions for every team member
Not a generic list, but questions based on what that specific person has up top in their talents.
A cadence of conversations
A concrete rhythm of meeting the team that the manager sets themselves and keeps going without us.
An action plan and a commitment
One or two behaviors they'll start doing deliberately. Written down, not just nodded at.
Follow-up after the program
For two more months after the last chapter, emails with a tip and a challenge keep coming. So the habit doesn't fade.
Not sure whether this fits your managers?
Thirty minutes on a call and you'll know whether the program makes sense. Or whether it's better to start somewhere else.
Sessions are led by a certified Gallup coach, not a trainer with slides
The program is led by certified Gallup coaches. We work with your managers in person, on their own talents.
Michael Koch
Founder of Fortal, Gallup Certified Strengths Coach
Alžběta Vacková
Gallup Certified Strengths Coach
Václav Němec
Gallup Certified Strengths Coach
I appreciate his structure, calm, and respect. Concrete habits and approaches I can use right away in my daily work and in leading a small team.
Situations where the program solves a real problem
The program pays off most in the moments when the quality of leadership truly matters.
After a team workshop
The team went through a workshop and got charged up. Within a month the effect fades unless the manager keeps it alive in everyday work. This is the step that follows.
A new manager
Someone great at their profession has just been promoted to lead. They know the craft, but nobody prepared them for leading people. That's the riskiest moment of a career.
People are leaving
Turnover is rising and exit interviews point to the relationship with the direct supervisor. People don't leave companies, they leave managers.
A boss with no time
An overloaded manager is the first to postpone one-on-ones. The team reads it as indifference. The program shows it can be handled in a few minutes a week.
You can start here and let the team workshop follow
Most often it starts with the manager. Once they understand their own talents and know how to lead conversations, the whole team feels it sooner than any workshop could deliver. A team workshop then follows naturally: it gives people the same language of talents their manager already uses every day. It works in the other order too, this one is simply faster.
Let's talk it through in thirty minutes
Write a few words about your managers. We'll get back to you by the next working day and set up a thirty-minute call. On it we'll figure out whether the program makes sense, or whether it's better to start somewhere else. We're not selling anything, we want to understand the situation first.