How Great Employees Get the Most out of Their One-on-Ones
Don’t Waste These Opportunities
“Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects,” said Greg Mortenson, offering a critical piece of leadership advice. Yet as most companies focus on building relationships with their customers, they overlook a much more important bond: the one between managers and employees. While customer relationships are important, building a culture of trust between managers and employees will provide far more benefits.
If you want to create a relationship with people, you need to spend time with them. Which is why I’ve found that one-on-one meetings are one of the best tools in developing these bonds. Bill Campbell, while coaching Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, and others in Silicon Valley, had “get the 1:1 right” as a core management principle for this very reason.
If you’re not familiar with them, one-on-one meetings are exactly what they sound like: focused time between the manager and employee. It’s a platform for employees to discuss whatever issues are on their minds. Done well, it helps build relationships, creates opportunities for feedback, and more proactively addresses issues.
The key point is that it’s the employee’s meeting. They set the agenda and lead the discussion. It’s their opportunity to get clarity on…
