Action items: The secret ingredient of effective one-on-ones
How to write and track action items in meetings.
Did you know that every year, businesses in the U.S. waste 37 billion dollars on ineffective meetings?
I’m sure that, like me, you’ve attended meetings that feel like circular discussions. Meetings where you leave wondering what the conclusion was, and who is supposed to do what. You might have a meeting full of great ideas — but if nobody records the next steps, did you really gain anything from that time?
Some of the reasons why companies around the world continue to waste money on meetings include a lack of planning (or meeting agendas), low participation levels, and lateness from meeting attendees. However, there’s one thing that makes most of these meetings so scarily unproductive: a lack of action items and key takeaways.
Our mission at Fellow.app is to empower you with all the tools you need to be an excellent team leader. This week, we bring you expert advice on how to achieve the most effective meetings with your direct reports:
1) The benefits of action items
We’ve talked about the benefits of one-on-ones in previous posts. These meetings empower managers to enhance team productivity, foster great work relationships and provide constructive criticism and praise. When done properly, one-on-ones can be the tool that makes your team work in a more efficient and harmonious way.
However, what happens when there are no key takeaways and next-steps coming out of your meetings? Basically, the valuable time you spent planning an agenda and coaching your direct-report goes to waste.
Let’s look at the top three benefits of action items:
They give every meeting a clear purpose
According to Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, many issues in a one-on-one lead to action required from both the manager and the employee. He talks about the importance of writing down notes and action items in the book High Output Management:
“When [the direct-report] takes a note immediately following the supervisor’s suggestion, the act implies a commitment, like a handshake, that something will be done. The supervisor, also having taken notes, can then follow up at the next one-on-one,” says Grove.
As a manager, you probably have several meetings, projects to supervise, and things to accomplish every day. That’s the first reason why you and your direct-reports should always write action items during your one-on-ones. Grove argued that writing down action items gives your meetings a clear purpose and makes it easier to keep your team accountable and on track.
In a Harvard Business Review article, Paul Axtell — a personal effectiveness consultant and author of Meetings Matter — argues:
“Meetings are really just a series of conversations — an opportunity to clarify issues, set direction, sharpen focus, and move objectives forward. To maximize their impact, you need to actively design the conversation.”
They help you establish clear expectations and priorities
Great managers act as guides (or coaches) for their less-experienced employees. They do this by fostering an environment that’s conducive to personal development, and by making sure that everyone on their team knows the expectations for their role. This is the second reason why all your one-on-ones should have clear action items.
Crafting a list of action items will help your direct-reports know what you expect them to accomplish, improve, and work on before the next time you meet. As Paul Axtell says:
“Getting firm, clear commitments is the primary way to ensure progress between meetings. In order for a conversation to lead to action, specific commitments must be made. Progress depends on clearly stating what you will do by when and asking others to do the same.”
One of the most common complaints from managers is that they spend too much time meeting with other people, and don’t see a lot of results coming out of these discussions. Documenting commitments and assigning specific tasks will not only help you make better use of everyone’s time but shorten future meetings and make it easy to follow-up.
For instance, if your direct-report tells you that one of their goals is to get promoted to a leadership role, you can coach them by writing down action items such as “Find ways to mentor my teammates,” “Read book X on management,” and “Expand my skills sets and ask for more responsibilities.” By writing down these action items, you’ll make the meeting more effective, help your direct-report clarify their priorities, and as a result, know exactly what to follow up on the next time you meet.
They empower you to be highly productive at work
Before we move on to the tips and tricks section, here’s one more reason to create an action item list during all your one-on-ones: productive people focus on getting what matters done instead of dividing their hours into trying to finish many small and insignificant tasks.
Larry Kim, CEO of MobileMonkey, argues that having clear priorities and action items empowers you to be highly productive at work. In an article he wrote, he asks readers: “Are you a busy donkey or a productive unicorn?”:
“The quest to be more effective at work has hatched misconceptions about what having a productive workday really means. It has also led most people into thinking that being busy is tantamount to being productive,” says Kim.
Instead of finishing all your meetings wondering what the next steps are, assign clear action items to help you and your direct-reports focus on the most important tasks. Empower your fellow teammates to be productive unicorns, not busy donkeys. 🦄
2) How to write the best action items during your one-on-ones
Charlie Hilkey, a business strategist and coach, says that one of the things he has learned during productivity workshops with clients is that leaders tend to formulate action items that aren’t helpful for their teams.
In order to differentiate yourself from these managers, you can put in practice the following tips to craft the best action items for your employees:
Write action items as the meeting evolves
Something that’s made my meetings 10X more effective is writing tasks as the conversation goes. My manager and I always prepare a shared meeting agenda in Fellow.app, which allows us to write clear action items under each talking point we discuss. Adding action items under every talking point has been a great way to make our meetings more productive, as everything we talk about has a clear outcome or next-step.
Start with a verb
There’s a big difference between writing an action item that says “Sales report” and writing a task that says “Apply feedback to sales report and send it to everyone on the team by next Friday.”
“A verb-noun construct tells you what needs to be done to what; it automatically spurs action, which is what we want,” says Hilkey.
Some action items might be easy to accomplish, but others may require to be split into sub-action items. For instance, if your direct-report wants to “Gain more leadership knowledge and experience,” you can create sub-action items that say: “Read X book on leadership,” “Look for mentorship opportunities,” and “Prepare a presentation for the team.”
“Gaining leadership experience” is not something you can accomplish from one day to the next. This example shows that starting your action item with a verb will give you, or your direct-report, a clear idea of how much work and time it’ll take to complete the task at hand.
Be specific — imagine you’re writing for someone else
Great action items contain enough information to spur you into action. Unclear action items require you to look through different documents and waste time trying to remember what the task was actually about. The best action items are clear enough that once you read them in your to-do list, you’ll know exactly what to do.
For instance, if the person from the previous example wrote “Sales report” in their list and came back two weeks later to review the action items that came out of that meeting, they would probably have no clue about whether they have to create, edit, or share the report. We all get busy and promise things we’ll get done during all our meetings. This is why you should always write your action items pretending that you’re writing instructions for someone else (just in case “future you” forgets).
“Does it take some extra time? You bet. But much more time is usually wasted by poorly formulating action items because they’re not spurring the actions needed to complete them,” says Hilkey.
Assign ownership of the task
Creating a list of ‘next steps’ during your meeting isn’t enough if nobody is held accountable for them. To make your one-on-ones more effective, always assign action items to yourself, or your direct-report.
Once your one-on-one meeting comes to an end, reviewing the list of action items will be easier if you established specific owners or assignees.
3) How Fellow can help
Fellow empowers you and your teammates to write action items, assign tasks and list the specific steps you’ll take before your next one-on-one. And to avoid losing your meeting notes or forgetting what you promised everyone on your team, you can use Fellow to centralize all your action items in one place and remember to work on them. Fellow will even send you reminders by email or Slack so you’re always on top of things!
Every meeting should have clear outcomes — Fellow helps you achieve them.
We hope these tips will make every meeting more effective for you and your fellow teammates. In order to have the best one-on-ones, don’t forget to always plan an agenda, take notes collaboratively, and assign clear action items that allow you to follow-up. 👋
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The definitive guide to the most misunderstood and yet powerful tool for managers. With a foreword by Lara Hogan.
Fellow helps managers and their teams have more effective 1-on-1s and team meetings, exchange feedback, and track goals — all in one place!
