How to make your next one-to-one less daunting
One to ones can be daunting for all managers, but particularly so for those who are new to the job, who often don’t get the support they need to do them well.
I’ve heard stories of people being promoted to manager and having this conversation with their own managers:
Manager: Congratulations, you have just become a manager!
You: Great! What do I need to do now?
Manager: Nothing much changes; just be your natural self but also, do one to ones.
You: How do I do that? Should I just do what you do with me? How do you do it? Why do you do them? Why should I do them?
Manager: Just be you and you’ll be fine…
I decided to write this blog post to describe my own way of doing one to ones, but want you to remember that everyone is different and will do them differently, so you can of course take my advice with a grain of salt. You can use this post as a recipe for your one to ones, or you can just spice yours up with some of my recommendations. [Editor: Needs more food-related metaphors.]
What are one to ones?
One to ones are a meeting between two people. Any two people can have a one to one, but the context I’ll be talking about is a one to one between a manager and a person they are supporting. You will usually get the most benefit from doing these regularly and routinely, and not just when you think you have something to talk about.
Why do we do them? Who benefits from them?
For the manager
As a manager, it’s essential that you build relationships with the people you support. Relationships are important for everyone in a company (a company is just an organised group of people after all), so of course you should build relationships with everyone you work with, but as a manager, your relationships with your team are your bread and butter. [Editor: Perfect.]
Building these relationships will allow you to understand each other better, and to create an environment in which you are comfortable to challenge and get the best out of each other. These are also the people you’ll be working alongside for most of your time, so why not build great relationships?
For the person being supported
Building a good relationship with your manager is often the most effective way to getting the support you need. To get the best out of your one to ones, I recommend coming prepared.
Bring subjects to talk about with your manager. This is your time to ask for feedback, ask for advice, and get to know your manager. If you have a distant or busy manager, take advantage of this time. You can also look over what you talked about in your last one to one so you can see if there’s anything left to discuss or action points that you or your manager forgot about.
Psychological safety
First and foremost, it’s important to create a safe and supportive environment where both people feel respected, accepted and comfortable to be themselves. This will make it easier for conversation to flow, to build trust, and to have useful conversations. If both people trust each other, it’s much easier to talk about uncomfortable things.
A key step to achieving this is to simply listen, without making assumptions or judgements. Allow the other person to finish speaking before jumping in, ask questions to make sure you understand their train of thought, and paraphrase back to demonstrate what you’re hearing. There’s a lot to be said about psychological safety that would probably be a blog post in itself, but if you make it a priority to create an environment where it’s okay to be vulnerable and ask questions without judgement, you’re on the right track.
Things that should happen during a one to one
Pulse check
My way of looking at one to ones is that they are primarily for the person you’re supporting rather than for you. As a manager, I usually start by asking a simple open question to encourage the person I’m supporting to talk about anything they want to (e.g. “How’s it going?”). I will usually reserve anything I want to talk about (like feedback, or anything I’ve spotted that I want them to be aware of) until they’re finished, unless they bring something up that relates to it.
Feedback
You should be giving constant timely feedback to the people you support, but a one to one is an excellent time to not only give, but receive feedback. It’s important to note that usually you, as their manager, will be in a more privileged position to give timely feedback but the same isn’t true for the people you support, so make sure you give space for this. I take the opportunity to ask questions like, “Is there anything I can do to help you?” or, “Is there something you’d like me to do more of?”
Spotting opportunities
In the safe environment that you’ve created, it’s (hopefully) very easy for the person you’re supporting to tell you what’s happening with their work, be that interactions with others, new team-related changes, or just different things they want to work on. This might give you insights into opportunities to explore together.
Example:
Alex: I’d love to learn about SVGs one day.
Simone (Alex’s manager): Hmm, you know, Chris has been working on SVGs on his team. Why don’t you ask him to pair with you?
Alex: That’s a good idea. Once I finish my current piece of work, I’ll go ask him!
Checking up on objectives
Humans are forgetful, so it’s a good idea to catch up on how they are progressing with their objectives. Getting feedback early on is much better than getting to the deadline and realising that a quick chat in the first week could have made a big difference for whether or not they were successful in achieving their objectives.
I usually ask how they’re getting on, and ask follow up questions to gather more info. What I want to get out of these conversations is mainly whether the objectives are still useful, and if they are motivated to keep doing them, or if we should rethink them or book another session to discuss them. It’s also okay to make small changes to objectives during the one to one (e.g. extending the deadline or changing the metrics slightly), to avoid having to book another meeting.
Coaching/mentoring
One to ones can present the opportunity to help the person you’re supporting with any problems or challenges they’re currently facing. There’s a whole post to be written about the difference between coaching and mentoring, but basically, when you mentor, you are guiding someone to a solution or learning, whereas in coaching, you’re helping them come up with the answer on their own (think Socratic method).
Of course some people may just want to vent, so make sure you ask before giving advice or probing for more information in order to help them (e.g. “Do you want me to help you resolve this right now, or do you just want me to listen?”).
Summary
We’ve covered what one to ones are, why they are useful, and what you might want to include in yours. In summary:
- One to ones can be daunting at first but they are important, and spending time on getting better at them will make you a better manager and team member.
- One to ones are a great tool for improving your relationship with the people you support, giving and receiving feedback, and finding opportunities to help or support your team.
- If you do just one thing in a one to one, listen.
