When you want to maximize one-on-one meetings: 7 things to keep in mind
Last week I talked about how to make your team meetings more meaningful and productive. What do you focus on in one-on-one meetings and how often do you have them?
Unfortunately, I know too many people who don’t meet with their manager regularly except at the beginning of the year, midway through the year and at the end of the year when performance needs to be reviewed. This is certainly a hands-off approach but it is hands-off to the point of disconnection or just plain neglect.
Without a regular touch base, you are leaving your team members to fend for themselves. While I am fan of empowering people and pushing decisions down the chain, without any connection to the manager, bad decisions can get made, work can get duplicated, and performance can veer off course.
Today, employees are more and more disengaged and disconnected. Gartner recently did a study of new hires and current employees. They found that 32% of new hires over the last 12 months felt some sense of belonging to their company while 40% of current employees felt the same. As a manager and people development professional, I find this alarming. We know feeling like you belong to a group of any kind is critical to all humans and inspires someone to stay engaged and stay with your organization.
One easy way to help with this disconnection is to set regular meetings with your team members one-on-one. As a manager, you may not feel it is necessary to meet with everyone one-on-one. You may feel you don’t get much out of it. You may feel you have nothing to tell your team members individually. You may feel like you don’t have the time. Okay. All of this could be true but this is the wrong way to look at meetings like this. The one-on-one time isn’t for you; it is for them — your team.
Over my career I have had several managers who didn’t meet with me because they had nothing to tell me. This script needs to flip because the meeting should be more about the team member telling you, sharing with you, and asking you what is on their mind. Here are a few tips to make these meetings productive and a good use of your time as a manager.
Let your team member drive the agenda.
First and foremost, these meetings are not about your agenda. Let your team members drive it. Ask them to come with a list of key updates, challenges, questions and other items they want to discuss. I have even asked them to schedule time with me instead of the other way around. This doesn’t mean you can’t share or ask questions but let them take the lead unless there is something very important you need to communicate or ask about.
Do more listening than talking.
As implied with asking the team member to drive the agenda, you should not dominate the conversation. This is the forum for your team member to do the sharing and for you to listen, seek to understand and offer commentary, if needed. This is their chance to pick your brain about a problem, ask you who they should get buy-in from, and share successes they have had. Put yourself in listen-only mode for a bit and see what happens. You might be surprised what you learn!
Ask how they want to use you.
When team members present their projects, have big meetings coming up or have a hairy problem to solve, ask them how they would like you to be involved. I have had managers that would jump in, fix or take over when I communicated a problem or told them about a big presentation or client request. That is not why a team member is sharing with you. In fact, if you do this too much, people will start to resent how much you jump in, feel smothered and may end up leaving. Ask how they want to use you. Sometimes a team member may ask for your help, may ask you to join a meeting or talk with another leader to get something resolved. Sometimes they will share that they would like to try something themselves first and let you know how it goes. Either way works. If a big meeting is coming up, ask if they want you to kick it off, attend for support only or stay out of it all together. They will tell you what they want. All you have to do is ask.
Help connect the dots.
I find one-on-ones are good opportunities to help your team member connect to other projects or initiatives that may be someone else’s role or another team’s responsibility. As I mentioned in my thoughts about team meetings, we can take for granted what we know that our team does not know. I will admit that I don’t always think about that new initiative I learned about last week when it could directly tie to something my team member is working on. Making these deliberate connections can prevent duplicate work, help align your team member to something broader in scope and maybe even provide them a bigger opportunity to shine.
Provide feedback.
Something else some managers shy away from is providing feedback. Not everyone, but most people, rely on feedback to improve. Whether it is positive or constructive, one-on-ones provide a great chance to provide feedback. You don’t need to wait until a formal performance review to do so. In fact, you do your team member a disservice to wait until December to talk about something that went wrong in July. Provide feedback close to the time that you witness a certain behavior. Again, this can be something you want to recognize and congratulate them on. It can also be behavior that may need some re-thinking or improvement. Either way, if you have a set meeting time and frequency, this is a good time to share your thoughts.
Find coaching moments.
We often think coaching and feedback are the same things. They are related but not necessarily the same. Feedback can be simple and should be close to the moment. It is usually specific and directly related to a certain event, behavior or situation. Coaching is usually broader. Good coaching involves asking more questions than making statements. Coaching can include asking your team member to provide feedback to themselves. You can ask them how they think something went or how did they think they did with that meeting, problem or customer interaction. Coaching is more about broad performance or even future aspirations. One-on-ones can lend themselves to moving into a coaching moment. Pay attention to the conversation and take advantage of those opportunities.
Hold short meetings frequently.
Finally, hold frequent meetings; don’t let it go to 2-3 times a year. I try and meet with everyone weekly. It may be 15 or 45 minutes but it is weekly. Keeping in mind that many people are feeling disconnected, allowing a weekly time for team members to share and stay connected to you is critical in these times.
Even though meetings can take up time on your calendar, make room to connect with your team members individually and as a team on a regular basis. We need to increase those belonging numbers to keep people engaged, inspire a sense of purpose about what they do and help them feel happy about being on your team. Set time to meet with your team. You will be surprised how much you learn and how much of a difference this time and attention can make.