Recently, I met with an HR leader responsible for guiding her company through change management efforts after their NPS survey.  They said the culture was fine… mostly.  But one theme stood out in the survey results: inconsistent management expectations.  

In a highly matrixed organization, that wasn’t surprising.  No one had a single manager.  Roles and reporting shifted from project to project, which meant most employees answered to multiple managers at any given time.  And with that came inevitable chaos.

Every manager had their own expectations, and often they contradicted the expectations of the other managers for a different project. This made it terribly difficult for a direct report to know what to do, when, and for whom.  The result? Confusion, exhaustion, and quiet frustration, especially for individual contributors trying to do the right thing in five different ways.

They had already tried empathy workshops and soft-skills training. The feedback was familiar: “It felt great in the moment… but nothing stuck.”  What they really needed wasn’t another feel-good session.  They needed management routines: daily practices that created consistency, not confusion.  Enter ManagerEQ.  

As a coach, I’ve seen it over and over again: the right practices and routines can save a manager’s sanity and a company’s culture.  We call these micro-rituals—small, intentional habits that lead to outsized results.  Do them once and they’re invisible. Do them daily, and they transform everything.

We help managers build those micro-rituals around three anchors:

• Relationships – Establishing trust and clarity through clear expectations.  
• Performance – Creating focus, not firefighting, through goal alignment and strong feedback.
• Advancement – Building advocacy and growth, so every manager becomes a multiplier of talent.

It’s like brushing your teeth regularly.  One time won’t cut it.  But over time, properly regularly brushing your teeth will contribute to good oral hygiene.  

That’s what the 21-Day Challenge for Managers is all about, helping leaders build new habits that stick using our app for just ten minutes a day.  One skill at a time.
Because culture changes when managers change what what they do every day.  We call that compound leadership.

This week, our team will be at AfroTech, connecting with managers and leaders who believe the same thing we do: the future of work runs on better managers.  If you’re ready to upskill yourself—or your team—start your own micro-ritual journey.

Join the 21-Day Challenge and build the habits that lead to macro-results.