New manager toolkit: templates for your first year leading a team

What's in the toolkit

The New Manager Toolkit brings together five tools from the shop. Each one also sells on its own, and together they cost less.

• Meeting Notes & 1:1 Agenda: capture decisions and a promises table with owner, due date and check-back, plus a 1:1 page to collect topics between meetings.
• 12-Week Planner with OKRs: set team objectives and key results, plan each week and score progress every Friday. Includes a scorecard spreadsheet.
• Work Task Manager spreadsheet: tasks, meeting promises, waiting-on items and projects in one Excel or Google Sheets file, with a live dashboard.
• Eisenhower Priority Planner: sort what's urgent and what's important before the day fills up.
• Manager's Performance Review Kit: evidence log, review worksheet, a 90+ line phrase bank, a conversation plan and 30-60-90 day check-ins.

Where to start in your first month

Start with 1:1s. Hold one with each person in the first two weeks and use the 1:1 page to collect what they care about, what's blocking them and what they expect from you. Keep the promises table from every meeting in one place, because the fastest way to lose trust as a new manager is to forget something you said you'd do.

By the end of the first month, agree on two or three team goals and put them in the 12-Week Planner. Then start an Evidence Log for each person. When review season comes, you'll have a year of notes instead of a blank page.