Making Every Contact Count

Building Strong Working Relationships

New Manager’s Group Coaching Programme

As a new manager do you find yourself:

• Overwhelmed by all the tasks on your plate?
• Dealing with personality clashes within your team or with other departments?
• Putting off having difficult conversations with team members about their performance?
• Struggling to manage the new dynamics with people who were once your peers?
• Needing to manage your relationship with your own manager?
• Finding it difficult to switch off or losing sleep worrying about work issues?

You already have busy lives, so the ‘Making Every Contact Count’ programme provides simple and practical steps you can take to build strong working relationships, enhancing both your own and your team’s performance, and making life easier for you all.

Who is this group coaching programme for?

Drawing on over 30 years’ experience of training and coaching managers, this Making Every Contact Count group coaching programme:

• Is for new managers or managers who have been in their role for a couple of years.
• You might be in a service industry, a professional business, manufacturing , retail or in the public sector. My experience shows that these techniques work across the board, in all different types of organisations.
• The programme is focussed on how you manage your team, as well as managing yourself.
• The coaching group is limited to 6 managers to enable plenty of opportunities for people to ask questions, discuss issues and get coaching within the sessions.
• You will be provided with tools and techniques tailored to your needs, plus time for paired work, small group discussions and action planning.
• The focus of the sessions is on practical actions that you will take back to work.
• Between sessions you will receive support via email to encourage you to put your actions into practice back at work.
• There is also an option to receive 121 coaching in between the sessions.

“All the sessions were very helpful to me as a new manager. I learnt something new each time that I could put into practice.” MH

“I enjoyed speaking to different people. I have learned a lot which will be useful for challenging my own perspective on work issues I face.” JP

Webinar Recording

To learn more about this concept watch my 38 minute webinar recording: Making Every Contact Count: Building Strong Working Relationships. 

The cost of new managers not performing well

ssWhen new managers do not get off to a good start and their relationships with their teams start to deteriorate, there can be a range of costs:

• Reduced performance by everyone in the team.
• Mistakes made, leading to increased costs.
• Performance or behavioural issues are not picked up early enough resulting in bigger problems developing.
• Sometimes there is the cost of disciplinary processes, PIPs or grievances which cost both managers and HR in terms of time and money.
• The unnecessary stress involved in the whole process for everyone involved.
• Team members or the manager leaving which then results in the cost of recruitment, induction and training.

Making Every Contact Count provides new managers with practical tools and techniques to use in their day to day interactions with others to avoid these problems from developing.

Making Every Contact Count Topics

There are a set of topics which will be covered during the four, 3-hour group coaching sessions. However, each session is tailored to your needs so there will be additional topics covered that will help you to make progress back at work. 

Here are the core topics:

• What does Making Every Contact Count mean to you in your workplace?
• Building rapport and strong connections with your team members and others at work.
• Managing challenging interactions with team members and others at work.
• Understanding how to deal with personality clashes.
• Understanding your own and others’ reactions to conflict and how to manage your brain’s threat response in these situations.
• Managing your mood and reactions to difficult situations.
• Enhancing your questioning and listening skills.
• Practising and developing your coaching skills.
• Exploring how to get in and stay in the Zone of Optimal Performance.

“Short, snappy topics, but in enough depth to make them meaningful.”

“The sessions opened my eyes to understanding myself and others.”

“Relevance – the topics covered were all appropriate.”

What does group coaching involve?

An on-going group coaching programme is different from attending a training course in that:

• You will be playing an active role in the group coaching sessions:
  • Asking questions, posing issues you want to discuss.
  • Receiving input on particular topics and then discussing how you can apply it to the work based challenges you are facing.
  • You will be working in pairs, coaching each other.
  • You will set specific action plans, shared with the group, and followed up by the coach in between the modules and at the next session.
• You and the other managers will be coached during the sessions to help you to identify what changes you need to make.
• The modules will follow the cycle of you taking action, coming back together to review your progress, receive further input and then plan your next step of actions to take:

Inhouse Programme – this group coaching programme can be run inhouse for either new or experienced managers.

The Benefits of group coaching

You are not alone – so many managers say to me after group coaching, ‘It is great to know I am not the only one who is facing these issues or feeling like this!’

Accountability – unlike normal training programmes there is a stronger feeling of accountability in a small group to carrying out the actions you say you are going to take.

Tailored coaching support – with a small group the input can be tailored to meet your needs. 

Safe environment – managers feel more comfortable being open and honest in small groups and they can be coached and supported around their individual needs.

Learn from each other – sometimes this is about strategies that the managers are already using and share with each other. Or when they try a technique from the programme and it works, which encourages others to give it a go. 

Support and challenge each other – during each module the managers will be paired up and they will be able to coach, support and challenge each other. 

On-going support – via emails to remind you to put your actions into practice. You can also ask questions via email between sessions to get further support about work based issues.

“The small group was really helpful, good course notes, and it was helpful to work in groups to discuss ideas.”

“Listening to other managers’ perspectives was helpful.” DB

“It was so helpful to realise that other managers have similar challenges and struggles.” MH

Your Coach: Melanie Greene

Hi, I am an Occupational Psychologist with over 35 years’ experience of coaching and running group programmes for a broad range of private and public sector organisations, from engineering manufacturing, food production, service and public sector organisations.

I feel passionately about helping people to make sustainable changes, both in and out of work, so they find it easier and more enjoyable to do their job.

New managers often do not get enough support in the transition from being a team member to managing a team. Often, it is the people side of the job which they find hardest. Hence, creating this programme just for new or nearly new managers.

One of my guiding principles is to practise what I preach and, as a pragmatist, I introduce clients to practise tools and techniques to help make their working lives easier. Here are what some managers said about recent programmes that I have run:

“Melanie is always good at involving people and including everyone in the conversation.”

“Melanie is a good listener; creating a safe environment and makes you feel at ease.”

“Melanie’s control of the session to keep things on track, along with very good group discussions. A mid-session break helped to maintain my concentration.”

Case studies

Here are some examples of actions managers have taken on previous Making Every Contact Count programmes:

Case Study 1: Mark was a new manager, he was struggling with the demands of the business, which was affecting his relationships with his team, leading to stress for himself and his team. One of his actions might appear obvious and simple but the impact was very powerful:

“When team members come into my office, I now look up from my work. I really listen to them, notice what they look like, how they might be feeling.”

He said that:

“You can judge how they are really feeling, adjust your communication to support them. It shows that I care, it builds trust, improves morale and ultimately performance.”

Case Study 2: Sally was finding it hard to keep her frustrations from showing, which was not helping her working relationships, she found this helpful:

“I now take a break when interactions start to go wrong. I take time to calm down, rethink how I am going to tackle a situation. I can then come back and have calm, Adult to Adult conversations.”

Case Study 3: Richard was an experienced manager who was struggling with a team member who was very negative and demoralised. In the past, they had locked horns over issues and the relationship was deteriorating. As a result of the MECC programme, he said:

“I have started going for a weekly walk around the site with an individual where the relationship has been challenging. I’ve been doing this for a number of weeks and the individual has said that rapport has been improving. Making it easier to have potentially challenging conversations when they occur.”

Dates for 2026 & Inhouse Programmes 

The dates for public programme are being finalised please contact us if you are interested in attending this programme.

This group coaching programme can also be run inhouse for either new or experienced managers.

Your Investment

There are three levels of the MECC group coaching programme:

PLATINUM Programme – group coaching sessions plus 121 coaching:

• Pre-programme questionnaire to assess your strengths and development needs.
• Four, 3-hour group coaching sessions over 4-5 months. Each group is limited to 6 managers.
• A training booklet of tools and techniques for each module.
• Plus, additional handouts to meet the needs of the group.
• Plus, recommended videos and podcasts to support your development. 
• Action postcards and action emails between the group coaching sessions to support you in putting your learning into action.

Plus, for PLATINUM participants you will receive:

• Four, 60-minute 121 coaching sessions to focus on your individual needs.
• These are either at any time during the programme or after the group coaching sessions to help you to keep the process going.
• Email summary of each 121  coaching session with handouts tailored to your needs.
• Continued email encouragement to continue to Make Every Contact Count.

Your PLATINUM investment £1399

“Gave me the opportunity to self-evaluate where I am now.”

GOLD Programme – group coaching programme:

• Pre-programme questionnaire to assess your strengths and development needs.
• Four, 3-hour group coaching sessions over 4-5 months. Each group is limited to 6 managers.
• A training booklet of tools and techniques for each module.
• Plus, additional handouts to meet the needs of the group.
• Plus, recommended videos and podcasts to support your development. 
• Action postcards and action emails between the group coaching sessions to support you in putting your learning into action.

Your GOLD investment £799

“Small group really helpful, good course notes, working in groups to discuss ideas helpful.”

“Learning simple models to help me to understand other people’s behaviour and their resistance to change.”

SILVER Programme – self-study:

• Pre-programme questionnaire to assess strengths and development needs.
• Four training booklets delivered to you by email over 4 months for you to work through on your own.
• You can email questions once a month for further support via email.

Your SILVER investment £199

“Eye opening learning.”

“Handbooks will be a good source of information going forward.”

“Melanie is so knowledgeable and explained everything really well.”

To book your place on the next course

Decide which programme you want to book on – either the Platinum, Gold or Silver Making Every Contact Count programmes or to ask any questions about the programmes by clicking below.