manager-training
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The School for Adults That Found Its Classroom at Work
LifeLabs Learning began with a slightly eccentric question: what if adults could practice the human skills nobody teaches in school? The answer became a global corporate classroom built around tiny behaviors, live rehearsal, and the useful discovery that a workshop is only the beginning.
Talentism Turned Executive Confusion Into a Product - Now It’s Teaching AI to Ask the Hard Question
The Westport coaching firm built a business around a contrarian idea: confusion is data. Its next act combines veteran coaches, organizational diagnostics and an always-on AI advisor - but the useful part is a method any manager can test before buying anything.
Tenor
Tenor is a San Francisco AI platform that helps managers get better at the human part of the job. Through hyper-realistic voice AI role-play simulations trained on a company's own leadership approach, managers rehearse high-stakes conversations - performance reviews, layoffs, conflict, feedback - in a safe space and get instant, coaching-style feedback. Founded in 2023 by former Workday leaders Charlie Stigler and James Cross, Tenor raised a $5.4M seed round led by Base10 Partners in December 2024.
Hone
Hone is a San Diego-area software company that delivers leadership and human-skills training to enterprises through small-group, live virtual classes led by expert facilitators, paired with program-management technology and, since 2025, a voice-first AI coach called Hone AI. Founded in 2018 by FanDuel co-founder Tom Griffiths and former CultureIQ leaders, Hone helps companies deploy, manage, and measure manager, leadership, and DEIB training at scale for distributed and hybrid teams. It has trained more than 50,000 people for customers including IBM, Rubrik, Thumbtack, and Rover.