If you, or your team, find yourself dreading the scheduled one-on-one meeting, then you’re probably doing it wrong.
One-on-one meetings provide an amazing opportunity to foster a stronger relationship with your team. It’s a place where you can catch up on personal and professional topics, provide guidance, and build trust.
The best one-on-one meetings build rapport
I believe there are three key ingredients to a successful one-on-one:
- Trust: say what you mean and mean what you say
- Clarity: know what to expect
- Space: opinions and perspectives are bi-directionally shared
Structured one-on-ones intentionally create space that encourages more topics to be discussed
This provides clarity and sets expectations between the team and myself as to what we’re going to chat about.
Most managers I’ve interviewed or spoken with acknowledge and interpret one-on-one time as being about supporting their team. Some managers take this a step further by keeping the agenda mostly blank and asking their team to come with any questions, comments, or concerns they have.
This time is yours! Tell me what you want to talk about.
Managers who prefer unstructured one-on-ones
I believe the unstructured approach can work with certain people, particularly those with whom you have a strong existing relationship and have a large amount of rapport. For newer team members or folks that are less comfortable with unstructured meetings, a structured approach to the one-on-one can be a huge relief.
Breaking down the one-on-one meeting
0. Schedule 60 minutes weekly with team members who are full-time employees, and 30 minutes every 2 weeks for 20h+ contractors
What a waste of time; I can’t spend almost an entire day every week talking with my team!
You, maybe (assuming you have the idealistic number of team members, 5-7)
This is some of the most valuable, high return-on-investment time that you have to invest each week. By routinely talking with your team and regularly providing feedback, guidance, and perspective, you’re building trust which will ultimately make the team more high-performing.
1. Create space to catch up personally
I’m a big believer in radical candor (I’ll probably write an entire post about my perspective on this in the future). Radical candor strengthens the personal relationship between you and whomever you’re being candid with because when it’s done correctly it helps build trust with the recipient through direct and clear feedback (both positive and critical).
A core component of radical candor is that you have to care personally about the person that you’re being candid with. Who knew that people are much more receptive to feedback or guidance when they believe that it’s coming from a place of genuine care for them?
If your team believes that you have their best interest at heart they are more likely to open up to you about sensitive professional topics, such as interpersonal conflict, disengagement, or general unhappiness. They will also be much more receptive to your feedback and advice, which is critical if you’re going to help your team grow in their careers.
To get your team to open up, I recommend you open up first, and regularly. During the personal section of the one-on-one, I do my best to share what’s going well in my personal life as well as what’s not going well. When my young son was dealing with some minor medical issues, I let my team know that during our one-on-ones, and I let them know that it was having an impact on my ability to focus and that I was experiencing increased anxiety levels.
2. Create space to talk about the company, the department/team, and themselves
As a manager, you are likely in some meetings and a part of some conversations that your team is not. On the flip-side, interactions are happening in the weeds that your team is experiencing and that you are likely blind to. This section helps bridge that gap.
I find that it’s helpful to go one step further than simply asking an open-ended “how do you feel about the company / department / yourself?”. By explicitly asking for positive and negative opinions about these topics (framed as “good” and “not so good”, you’re creating space that might not have existed otherwise.
3. Provide feedback, guidance, and encourage your team to give you the same
I try to provide some amount of useful feedback weekly, and at a minimum once every three weeks.
Providing and receiving feedback is perhaps the most critical soft skill that a manager must hone. I have a dedicated section in my one-on-one meeting template to provide “like” and “wish that” feedback to my team, and to solicit that same feedback from them about me.
“Like” feedback can be provided by answering the following question:
“What is something I observed you do that I liked since our last one-on-one and why did I like that?”
This is a great opportunity to praise your team and reinforce the positive things they are doing. This praise can range from recognition of an expert showcasing their existing skills, or recognition that they’ve shown more advanced capabilities than you’d expect from someone at their current level or title.
Here’s an example of real “Like” feedback I’ve given to a team member:
I like that you exercised extreme ownership over Acme Ticket ABC and that you jumped into Situation ABC when Jane raised the flag that partners were looking at it and asking questions. This showcased an impressive amount of autonomy and judgment.
Real “like” feedback from a 1:1 with one of my team members, with some identifying information changed
“Wish that” feedback can be provided by answering the question:
“What is something I observed you do that I wish that you did differently and why do I wish that?”
This feedback is critically important; most of the time this is where there is the most opportunity to help your team grow, and helping them grow will help to build trust. If you have a team member that’s underperforming, this is a great opportunity to be clear and explicit with them. If you have a team member who is doing great at their level but is working on a promotion, you can use this section to give them feedback centered around that.
Here’s an example of real “Wish that” feedback I’ve given to a team member:
1. I wish that you thought about whether or not the Acme XYZ request was important enough to derail your existing commitments. As you level up, it is important that you holistically understand your deliverables and exercise thoughtful and correct judgement and communication.
2. I wish that you checked the priority of the Acme-456 ticket you worked on before prioritizing it. If it had to be prioritized, you should have considered handing it off to someone else that can get it done so you can accomplish the work that only you can do. As you level up, properly delegating work will be a skill that will enable you to increase your efficiency and multiply your impact.
Real “wish that” feedback from a 1:1 with one of my team members, with some identifying information changed
4. Note down any miscellaneous topics
I think of the miscellaneous section, affectionately, as the “junk drawer” of the one-on-one. It’s impossible to create structure for everything that someone might want to talk about, so this is a place for those topics to be captured and discussed. I often find that this section is blank since there are so many spaces carved out in the meeting already to chat about most topics.
5. Once per month, ask the “magic questions”
The “Magic Questions” is a set of 6 questions curated by Matt Mochary which happen to dovetail very nicely with the three things that I care about creating in a one-on-one (clarity, space, and trust).
I’ve found that the best way to build trust with this exercise is to listen wholeheartedly, make commitments, and follow through.
I only ask 4 of the 6 questions that Matt suggests, which I’ll denote below. Each question has the follow-up “What would get it to the next level?”.
Magic Question Grading
1 – It couldn’t be any worse
3 – Meeting expectations
5- It couldn’t be any better.
Magic Questions
- How are you feeling about your life at work, 1-5?
- How are we performing as a company, 1-5?
- What is it like to work with the rest of the team, 1-5?
- What is it like to work with me, 1-5?
- (Omitted) How is your work from home setup, 1-5?
- (Omitted) How is your personal life, 1-5?