Weekly one on one meetings
I recently started having weekly one-on-one meetings and they are the most valuable activity I do every week, if you don’t do them, start today by following the advice in this podcast!
You need a strong relationship with your manager
After our team started collecting feedback every week, I noticed a lot of things I would like to have heard about, either so I could help or so I could provide recognition. I also saw the aggregated numbers (shout out for the Leo Office Bot tool) that indicated team members didn’t feel they had a great relationship with their manager and I set about trying to improve.
When I thought about my interactions with the people that worked for me, I realised a lot of the time I would come to them and initiate a conversation when I wanted something. It turns out that when you start a conversation with “How are you going with this?” or “Do you need help with that?” you are railroading every conversation to be about what you want to talk about! Some people are comfortable to come up to their manager at another time and talk about what is important to them. But not everyone is comfortable to approach their manager to raise important topics that they would like to discuss, you need to actively provide the opportunity.
I knew I needed to give everyone a chance to be heard and as I started researching and talking to people about ideas, an idea that repeatedly came up was one-on-one meetings. My previous experiences with one-on-one meetings with my managers were poor. The most common scenario was monthly one-on-one meetings that were put in calendars and then got skipped because someone was unavailable. I would have been lucky to have a real one-on-one with a previous manager once, despite having them in my calendar for over a year!
After a bit more research, I found Manager Tools and started listening to some of their podcasts, I started with One-on-Ones Part 1! They explain that one-on-ones that are run consistently, weekly and are focused on the needs of both the people involved dramatically improve the professional relationship between an employee and their manager. A better relationship means that people feel comfortable and have the opportunity to discuss topics and raise issues that are important to them in a timely manner.
An improved professional relationship also encourages open and honest feedback, which leads to improved performance for both the manager and the employee. I have seen all these benefits and more in less than two months of having these meetings. But the mechanics of these meetings are important, I’ll cover timing and agenda, Manager Tools provides a lot of detail if you would like to learn more.
They have to be weekly
To build a relationship, the frequency of interaction is critical. Meeting every week will give you an opportunity to follow up on topics that have been discussed, take actions or provide recognition before you meet again, but while the topic is still relevant. If you are giving and receiving feedback, the number of improvements you can make is limited by the number of cycles you can complete and test. That means the more frequently you give and receive feedback, the faster you can improve.
While you both work hard to make every one-on-one, sometimes unavoidable things prevent you even rescheduling to another day. Perhaps you go on leave for a week, your VP flies into town and demands your undivided attention or maybe the team is fixing a production issue. If your meetings are weekly, you will be ok to catch up the following week and catch up where you left off. However if your meetings are scheduled fortnightly, that could result in no meeting for a month which is not acceptable!
Agenda, 10 min for You, 10 min for Me, 10 minutes for the Future
As I mentioned already, if you start a meeting as a manager by asking about something or generally opening with a topic, you will railroad the entire conversation. The trick is use a nice neutral opening that lets the other person speak about whatever they want, I usually start one-on-ones with “What’s on your mind?”, you should chose your own way that feels natural.
I use the agenda from Manager Tools and as suggested by them, I don’t cut off the other person if we don’t follow it strictly. After about 10 minutes though, I will raise topics or ask questions that are important to me. I mostly find that what has been raised by the person I’m meeting with is the most important thing for me to discuss and is the topic we talk about for most of the meeting.
I try to end each meeting with each of us providing any feedback we have for each other.
Its easy, its valuable, just do it
Honestly, that’s about all there is to doing one-on-ones. Because we are improving relationships, one-on-one meetings with will improve over time. Don’t be concerned if they aren’t as open and valuable as you imagine in the first few weeks, if you are consistent they will improve.
There are a bunch of other topics covered in the podcasts, so if you have difficulties or complicated situations (like a busy travel schedule), there is guidance available.
