Where should managers and employees meet for their one-on-one meetings?
To walk or not to walk, that is the question.
Now that you’ve scheduled frequent one-on-ones with each of your direct-reports and have a clear idea of how to structure the meetings, you might be asking yourself: where’s the best place to meet with people on my team?
Some managers wonder if it’s a good idea to go for a walk or grab lunch with an employee during their one-on-one. Our Answer? Meetings don’t have to be boring! Why not try different styles? 👏
Managing is not one-size-fits-all. Every organization has a different culture and way of doing things. Similarly, every person on your team will prefer different locations to meet. Choosing different settings based on what your direct-reports prefer can add excitement to your meetings and help you strengthen your relationship with them.
In our mission to empower you to be a great leader, the Fellow.app team analyzed the three most popular one-on-one styles (with pros, cons and tips!), so you can decide where to meet with each member of your team:
Meeting at the office
Most managers have one-on-one meetings inside the office. But just because you’re using the most common meeting style, it doesn’t mean your meeting has to be “average.”
One-on-ones should be a safe space for coaching, communication, and connection. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, they’re a great tool to have difficult conversations and build positive work relationships. If you meet with your employees on a frequent basis, they’ll be more likely to trust you as a mentor and share their struggles, worries, and personal thoughts with you.
According to Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, one-on-ones are the ideal environment to build rapport with your employees, help them clarify their priorities and address issues that wouldn’t be brought up at a meeting or over a messaging app. This is why, sometimes, these meetings should take place behind closed doors:
“These meetings should be a safe space for people to nurture new ideas before they are submitted to the rough-and-tumble of debate,” says Scott.
Meeting with direct-reports in a private space helps you focus on a clear agenda and put your active listening skills into practice. It’s also helpful if you prefer to use your laptop to take meeting notes and record clear action items.
One disadvantage of using laptops as note-taking tools is that they create a physical barrier between you and the employee. However, the best way to overcome this is by using a shared document like Fellow.app, where both of you can record and read notes simultaneously.
Pro tip: Use a shared document to read each other’s notes and remove physical barriers like water bottles or desk decor.
Something that works for many managers is projecting their meeting agenda on a TV or bigger screen. This practice allows you and your direct-report to focus on specific talking points, take notes collaboratively and know what the other person is referring to as they speak. (Besides, it’s nice to know that the other person won’t be replying to emails or getting distracted by notifications in the middle of the meeting).
Pro tip: Project your screen to make note taking inclusive and shared.
Another important tip is to put your employee’s needs first. For this reason, Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel and author of High Output Management, argued that one-on-one meetings should not take place in the manager’s office, but the employee’s.
Meeting your direct-report in their office empowers them to set the meeting tone and helps you learn about their day-to-day workflow and environment.
“I think you should have the meeting in or near the subordinate’s work area if possible. A supervisor can learn a lot simply by going to his subordinate’s office. Is he organized or not? Does he repeatedly have to spend time looking for a document he wants? Does he get interrupted all the time? Never? And in general, how does the subordinate approach his work?,” wrote Grove.
If your direct-report doesn’t have a private office, you should avoid meeting them in your office and find a neutral space (like a meeting room) instead. Meeting rooms are a great option, as they allow you to project your screen and avoid distractions that could be present around your desk.
Pro tip: Meet at your direct-report’s office or find a neutral space, such as a meeting room.
Meeting at the park
Even though meeting inside an office is a great way to keep your one-on-ones personal and private, experienced managers argue that you should take some difficult conversations for a walk outside.
“When planning a difficult conversation, try taking a walk instead of sitting and talking,” says Kim Scott. “When you’re walking, the emotions are less on display and less likely to start resonating in a destructive way. Also, walking and looking in the same direction often feels more collaborative than sitting across a table and staring each other down.”
This idea of walking in the same direction is a powerful one. Instead of facing each other across a table, walking one-on-ones will make you and your direct-report feel like you’re working towards the same goal. However, if you take the conversation outside, make sure that the meeting still feels intimate, and no one else can hear what your employee has to say.
Pro tip: Go for a walk in an open space, where other people can’t overhear the conversation.
A study conducted by the Graduate School of Education at Kyoto University suggests that maintaining eye contact draws on the same mental resources we use when performing complex tasks. In other words, maintaining eye contact during a 45-minute meeting can not only be tiring, but prevent you from using your full creativity and reasoning during such discussions.
In contrast, researchers at Stanford University found that people’s creative output increases by an average of 60 percent when they are walking.
The study found that “the creative juices continued to flow even when a person sat back down shortly after a walk.” This means that apart from feeling less awkward (because you’re both looking in the same direction), walking one-on-ones will foster better conversations and make you feel inspired even after coming back from the meeting.
Avi Arfin, an engineer manager at Quora, uses walking one-on-ones to check-in with his team. He argues that ten seconds of silence can feel like an eternity when you’re inside an office, making managers and employees feel forced to wrap up their meeting as soon as there’s an awkward silence.
Arfin finds that silence feels more natural during walking meetings, and allows employees to think calmly and explore relevant topics that they wouldn’t have addressed inside an office or a meeting room.
“Outside, when we run out of things to say, we have to get back to the office anyway, so we have to come up with something to talk about. Sometimes this ends up being just casual chit chat (which is valuable anyway in helping maintain a rapport with my colleagues), but sometimes we end up remembering other things that we wanted to talk about,” says Arfin.
Pro tip: Embrace silence. Use it to come up with better questions and deeper conversations.
One disadvantage of going for a walk during your meeting is the possibility of getting distracted by people passing by or things going on around you. Let me tell you a quick story:
I have a friend who used to go on walks with her boss. However, she remembers these “meetings” more as “networking sessions,” where the manager would spend 70 per cent of the time socializing with people that he saw during their walk. Even though her boss started this initiative with good intentions, going for walks didn’t allow him to focus on the discussion.
In the end, getting interrupted by other conversations and people in the town made my friend (the direct-report) take one-on-one meetings less seriously and stop bringing up sensitive talking points.
Pro tip: Avoid distractions. Use walking one-on-ones to connect with your direct-report on a personal level.
The average adult spends more time sitting down (9.3 hours per day) than sleeping (7.7 hours), according to a Harvard Business Review article. If you are good at avoiding distractions, why not go for walks with your employees to boost creativity, have better conversations and add some physical activity to your day?
Experts like Nilofer Merchant (ranked as of the most influential management thinkers in the world) encourage you to take your one-on-one meetings outside:
“I’ve learned that if you want to get out of the box thinking, you need to literally get out of the box,” says Merchant.
Pro tip: Use our one-on-one meeting agenda tool to plan a meeting agenda ahead of time and take quick notes and action items from your phone as you walk.
Meeting at a coffee shop
When you’re sitting in a meeting room or inside an office, it’s too easy to fall into the habit of just talking about projects and status updates. In contrast, going out for lunch or a coffee shop can be a great way to switch atmospheres and connect with your employees.
According to Russ Laraway, Vice President of People at Qualtrics and former COO of Candor Inc, one-on-one meetings are more effective when they are frequent, but vary in terms of setting and discussion topics:
“Most often, it’s probably easiest and most efficient to grab or schedule a room and get right into it. Every once in awhile, though, offer to change the setting. Think of it as a chance to interact with your team member more as a human being than as just the stodgy old boss,” says Laraway.
In some organizations, one-on-ones become an activity that managers and employees see as a chore. In my opinion, this happens when managers don’t acknowledge the value that these meetings have to connect with their fellow teammates. If we spend most of our lives at work, why not build great relationships with the people around us?
One way to make your one-on-one meetings more enjoyable is to start scheduling them at exciting places (like a restaurant). Once you change your perception of these meetings and their overall purpose, it will make more sense to schedule them at places you love, like a coffee shop or during lunch.
Pro tip: Ask your employees if they’re ok with using their lunch time to check-in and chat with you.
Some benefits of eating during your one-on-one include having a more relaxed environment and natural pauses during the conversation. As one of my favourite quotes goes, you should always “let silence do the heavy lifting,” when making decisions and speaking about important issues. In this case, eating food or drinking your coffee provides an opportunity for the other person to think and respond.
Going out for lunch is a great way to make conversations feel more natural and informal. However, if you’re planning to ask your employee for feedback or specific professional development goals, make sure you let them know so they can prepare ahead of time. Finally, look for a place where your conversation can’t be overheard.
Pro tip: Find a table or setting with no people around, so your conversation remains private.
One of the best ways to ensure your direct-report feels heard is by taking notes and coming up with actionable takeaways. However, writing down notes or using a laptop might feel awkward when there’s food on the table.
Again, an easy solution for this is having a meeting agenda prepared in advance, and using your phone to take notes during the one-on-one. Another good trick is to save the last five minutes of the meeting to write notes and clarify the next steps that both you and your direct-report will take.
Pro tip: Use your phone to follow a meeting agenda and write down quick notes and action items. Fellow is the perfect app for that, as it lets you plan agendas collectively and take notes in real-time.
Try it out. Ask your direct-reports if they’d like to have their next one-on-one over coffee, lunch, or a nice walk in the park. Choosing different settings for your meetings will make the conversations feel more natural and empower you to build better relationships at work.
If you’d like a quick reminder, here’s a summary of the one-on-one tips we covered in this article:
- Remove physical barriers.
- Project your screen to make note taking inclusive and shared.
- Meet at your direct-report’s office or find a neutral space.
- Alternatively, go for a walk in an open space.
- Embrace silence. Use it to come up with better questions and deeper conversations.
- Avoid distractions. One-on-ones allow you to connect with your direct-report on a personal level.
- Ask your employees if they’d like to meet with you over lunch.
- Use Fellow.app to plan a meeting agenda ahead of time and record notes and action items from your laptop or phone.
We hope this post was helpful! Share it on your social media if you know other managers that would benefit from it 💙
Finally, check out Fellow.app to collaborate on meeting agendas, keep track of work interactions, and record action items so you always stay on track!
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