Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Creating a Leadership Development Framework for First-Time Managers

Moving from individual contributor to manager changes the nature of work. New supervisors must guide performance, communicate priorities, resolve conflict, coach colleagues, and make decisions while learning how to lead former peers. Good intentions are valuable, but they rarely provide enough structure for this transition.

A leadership development framework gives first-time managers a practical path from appointment to effectiveness. It clarifies the behaviors, knowledge, experiences, and support systems required at each stage. It also helps organizations connect manager development with workforce capability, engagement, productivity, and customer outcomes.

The strongest frameworks treat management as a business capability rather than a one-time training event. Learning experiences should be reinforced through practice, feedback, manager coaching, and measurement that shows whether new behaviors are being adopted on the job.

Define The Managerial Expectations

Begin by identifying what managers must accomplish in the organization’s specific operating environment. A frontline manager in a contact center may need strong skills in workforce planning and service recovery, while a technical team leader may require greater emphasis on prioritization, collaboration, and decision-making.

Translate broad values such as “communicate well” or “lead with empathy” into observable behaviors. For example, a manager might be expected to hold regular one-to-one meetings, set measurable goals, address performance concerns promptly, and explain how team work supports organizational priorities.

Involving senior leaders, experienced managers, human resources, and high-performing employees creates a more credible competency model. It also reduces the risk of designing a generic course that feels disconnected from daily management responsibilities.

Build A Practical Capability Model

A useful model typically includes several capability areas: leading self, leading individuals, leading teams, and delivering business results. First-time managers need self-awareness and emotional regulation before they can consistently coach others or handle difficult conversations.

Core capabilities may include delegation, feedback, performance management, inclusive leadership, communication, conflict resolution, decision-making, meeting facilitation, and change leadership. Each capability should include examples of effective and ineffective behavior, allowing learners to recognize what good management looks like in practice.

The framework should also distinguish between foundational and advanced expectations. A new manager may first focus on establishing trust, clarifying roles, and managing priorities. Later development can address strategic thinking, talent reviews, succession planning, and cross-functional influence.

Sequence Learning Around Real Work

Leadership development is more effective when it follows the rhythm of managerial work. A short learning burst on delegation can precede a real assignment, followed by a practice conversation, peer discussion, and manager feedback. This sequence turns knowledge into repeatable behavior.

Use a blend of workshops, coaching, simulations, job aids, reflection activities, and peer learning. Scenario-based exercises are especially valuable because they allow new managers to rehearse sensitive situations before facing them with employees.

A structured 30-, 60-, and 90-day journey can provide momentum. Early activities might focus on relationship building and role clarity; the middle phase can address feedback and performance expectations; later activities can reinforce team effectiveness and business planning. Resources on leadership pipelines can help organizations connect these milestones to broader talent progression.

Create Support Beyond The Classroom

The manager’s direct supervisor is one of the most important influences on development. Senior managers should discuss learning goals, observe relevant behaviors, provide timely feedback, and create opportunities for new leaders to apply their skills.

Peer circles can give first-time managers a confidential setting to compare experiences and solve common problems. A facilitator can use real cases involving missed deadlines, team tension, unclear accountability, or resistance to change. This approach makes the program responsive to current business conditions.

Organizations should also provide practical tools: conversation guides, checklists, goal-setting templates, escalation pathways, and decision frameworks. These resources lower the cognitive burden on new managers and make expected practices easier to repeat.

Connect Management To Business Results

A leadership framework should show how improved management contributes to organizational performance. Stronger coaching may improve productivity, reduce avoidable turnover, or increase internal mobility. Better communication can support execution, employee confidence, and service consistency. Research on capability and customer satisfaction illustrates why employee development deserves attention beyond the learning function.

Framework Element	First-Time Manager Application	Evidence Of Progress
Capability model	Defines expected management behaviors	Clear standards and assessment results
Practice design	Rehearses real conversations and decisions	Demonstrated skill in simulations and work
Manager support	Reinforces learning through coaching	Quality and frequency of follow-up
Business alignment	Links behavior to team priorities	Improved operational or people metrics
Evaluation	Tracks adoption, impact, and value	Reliable evidence of business contribution

Measurement should begin before delivery. Establish baseline indicators such as employee engagement, regrettable turnover, absenteeism, quality, productivity, customer feedback, or internal promotion rates. Select measures that match the business outcomes the framework is intended to influence.

Predictive Evaluation can strengthen this process by forecasting likely adoption and impact before substantial resources are committed. The approach associated with strategic value helps learning leaders frame development as an investment with measurable consequences.

Make The Framework Sustainable

A leadership program needs ownership, governance, and regular review. Assign responsibility for curriculum quality, participant experience, manager involvement, data collection, and capability updates. Without clear accountability, even a well-designed program can lose relevance after its first launch.

Review the framework when business strategy, technology, workforce demographics, or operating models change. New managers may need different support during rapid growth, restructuring, hybrid work, or major process transformation.

Keep the experience focused. A smaller number of well-reinforced behaviors will usually produce more value than a long catalog of disconnected topics. Development should feel demanding and practical, with enough flexibility to address individual gaps and local team realities.

Put The Framework Into Action

Organizations can move from concept to implementation by:

Defining five to eight observable manager behaviors tied to business priorities
Mapping each behavior to learning, practice, coaching, and workplace reinforcement
Preparing senior managers to support and assess new leaders
Establishing baseline measures before the development journey begins
Reviewing adoption and business impact at regular intervals

A clear framework gives first-time managers confidence while giving the organization a consistent way to build leadership capacity. Begin with the outcomes your business needs, design around the work managers actually perform, and measure whether learning changes behavior and results.

Dave Basarab Consulting can help your organization design, deliver, and evaluate a leadership development system that strengthens manager capability and connects learning investment to business performance.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.