coaching skills | GROW model | 1 on 1 meetings | giving feedback | mentoring | performance review | employee development
What You Will Learn:
- Run a coaching conversation with GROW and the balance wheel, and recognise the moments when coaching is the wrong tool entirely
- Ask questions that make a person solve their own problem instead of coming back to you for the answer
- Launch 1:1 meetings across a company: format, frequency, the ROI calculation and the pitch that gets it approved
- Give critical feedback without demotivating, using a six-step model and a script you prepare in advance
- Build a mentoring programme end to end — matching, mentor preparation, the first meeting, boundaries, and a clean ending
- Design a performance review form from 12 templates and a library of 170+ competency phrasings
- Write a development plan on the 70-20-10 model with success measures, budget and deadlines
- Roll both processes out with a RACI matrix, an annual calendar, rating calibration and a metrics dashboard
- Learn alongside Mike’s 1.6 million students from 185 countries
- Get the author’s experience from Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank
The “Manager Trap” and Why This Course Hits Different
Look, I’ve been in the tech trenches for over a decade, and I’ve seen the same story play out a hundred times. A brilliant senior dev or a high-performing analyst gets promoted to management, and suddenly, they’re drowning. They think their job is to be the “Answer Person,” which only leads to a massive bottleneck and a team that can’t think for themselves. Mike’s course, Coaching Skills for Managers, is essentially an intervention for that exact scenario.
What I appreciate most here isn’t just the theoretical “rah-rah” leadership talk you find in most certification prep materials. It’s the raw pragmatism. Mike draws from heavy-hitting experience at places like Preply and Wargaming to show you how to actually operationalize employee development. It’s about moving from a reactive “fixer” to a proactive coach. The course doesn’t just tell you to “be a better leader”; it gives you a real-world project framework to build a management system that actually scales.
Prerequisites for Success
You don’t need an MBA or a background in psychology to get value out of this. However, this is definitely for someone who is either currently managing a team or is about to step into a leadership role. If you’re a complete beginner to advanced learner in the management space, you’ll find it accessible, but you need a “lab environment”—meaning a team or at least a few direct reports—to practice these job-ready skills. You also need to be willing to shut up and listen. The hardest part for most tech pros is the “stop giving answers” requirement. If you can’t commit to that psychological shift, the tools won’t help you.
Mastering Industry-Standard Tools
The course is packed with hands-on labs in the form of scripting exercises and framework applications. You aren’t just learning what a GROW model is; you’re learning how to bake it into a performance review that doesn’t make people want to quit.
- The GROW Model & Balance Wheel: Navigating the conversation without taking over.
- 1:1 Frameworks: Calculating the ROI of your meetings so you can justify the time to your own stakeholders.
- RACI Matrix & Annual Calendars: The “boring” but essential industry-standard tools that keep a department from descending into chaos.
- The 70-20-10 Development Model: Moving beyond simple “training” and into actual career growth through experience and exposure.
- Feedback Scripts: Using a six-step model to deliver the hard truths without destroying morale.
Career Benefits & Job Roles
If you’re looking to transition into roles like Engineering Manager, Team Lead, or Head of Operations, this course is a massive resume builder. It moves you away from the “technical expert” silo and into the “people strategy” space. For those pursuing career growth, being able to point to a structured mentoring programme you built or a metrics dashboard for team performance is what gets you through the door for Director-level positions. It provides the job-ready skills that bridge the gap between “I can do the work” and “I can lead the people who do the work.”
Pros: Why It’s Worth Your Time
- The “No-Coaching” Zone: One of the best parts of this course is Mike’s honesty about when coaching is the *wrong* tool. Sometimes you just need to give a direct order or provide training, and he helps you recognize those moments so you don’t look like a management bot.
- The Template Library: The 170+ competency phrasings and 12 performance review templates are worth the price of admission alone. Why reinvent the wheel when you can use industry-standard tools that have already been vetted?
- Operational Focus: This isn’t just about “vibes.” It’s about the RACI matrix, the budget, the deadlines, and the dashboard. It’s management for people who like systems.
- Global Perspective: Learning alongside 1.6 million students gives the content a sense of universal applicability that many localized management courses lack.
Cons: The Honest Take
If I have one gripe, it’s that the course is incredibly dense. This isn’t a “weekend watch” that you can breeze through on 2x speed while answering emails. To actually get the career growth promised, you have to do the work—writing the scripts, filling out the 70-20-10 model, and practicing the 1:1 pitches. If you aren’t in a position to immediately apply these hands-on labs, the sheer volume of templates and administrative frameworks might feel a bit overwhelming. It’s a lot of “homework” for a busy manager, but then again, being a good boss was never supposed to be easy.