According to research, 33% of managers agree that one of the biggest challenges of one-on-ones is ensuring they’re providing value to their direct reports. So, what should be your considerations as a manager?
Sometimes one-on-one meetings go wrong in ways you cannot pinpoint. Making it a weekly agenda and getting your team to show up regularly is quite easy, what is hard is putting in the necessary efforts and models to have great 1:1s.
At Opteamize, we aim to make the very best leader out of every manager by empowering you with the tools and insights to cultivate psychological safety, a growth mindset, and a learning culture within your team leading to overall optimal performance.
One-on-one is one of the best practices for high-performing managers these days and without further ado, let’s guide you through tips for stepping up your game as a leader and Opteamizing each of your 1:1s.
What exactly is a 1:1?
1:1 meetings are weekly personalized conversations between a manager and their team members to ask questions about work challenges and performance roadblocks and find solutions together. They are a great opportunity for managers to connect with their employees and uncover ways to guide and support them.
What Boxes Should You Check?
For 1-on-1s to be effective, they need to happen periodically. For some managers, this means weekly meetings. Make sure that both you and the employee figure out how often and when you need to meet regularly. Once you’ve agreed to a cadence, schedule your one-on-ones. Make sure to add a recurring meeting to the calendar. This is a subtle but clear way for managers to show that they are invested. It helps to show the commitment to consistently make time for the individual. Things come up and schedules change. But instead of canceling, do your best to reschedule. Canceling can send the message that the meeting isn’t important, when in fact, it’s the crux of your relationship with your direct report.
You want to set expectations for your employee. Set and share the agenda of the next 1:1 conversations with the concerned employee beforehand. Ask them to share their talking points as well. Before you get into specifics about their individual performance, let your team know (from time to time) what success looks like for the team as well as for each role. This is the time to set the agenda, create talking points, review previous conversation history and team priorities, and get into the right mindset. If things have been going well, remind yourself to focus on recognition. And if things are not going as expected, remind yourself to focus on finding a solution to the problem instead of finding faults in the concerned employee.
Your 1:1s should be an uninterrupted break from the normal workday, where your employee can speak to you freely about anything they are dealing with at work to foster psychological safety. At least two of the following topics should be covered: work habits and performance, team collaboration, levels of engagement, performance goals, career development goals, and manager performance. Starting from ground zero can feel daunting. But luckily, we are here to guide you. Consider having prompt questions underneath each topic to help frame your conversation. You might consider having your employee fill this out before your 1:1 so that you can anticipate areas of focus.
Mastering The Process
Before meeting
- Sometimes holding your 1:1s outside of your regular office space creates an air of informality around them. This makes employees feel more at ease and serves the purpose better. For example, use coffee breaks, meet for lunch or have a walking meeting to discuss their challenges. However, make sure that informality does not lead to deviation from the meeting agenda.
- It is natural for some employees to refrain from giving honest feedback or sharing genuine concerns about the team's performance because they fear the consequences of being known by other team members as “the one who complains”. Also, not everyone is equally comfortable sharing their problems. Therefore, you must customize the tonality, context, and structure of your 1:1s to suit every employee’s personality and needs. As a manager, you are responsible for ensuring that everyone feels safe and their privacy is protected.
- Set the right mindset. As a manager, your job here is to find ways to support, guide, and coach your team. Don’t start 1:1s with a mindset to dissect the employee’s performance, rather use this time to show your employees that you care about them. Remember that your employees are the focus of the conversation. Instead of forcing them to comply with your orders, allow them to come up with possible solutions. Listen without judgment and then suggest your solution. Keep things informal to make the employees feel at ease so they feel free to provide honest feedback.
- Get the right tools in place. Make sure you and your direct report have all the tools you need for a seamless meeting. Depending on whether you’re meeting virtually or in person, you may need to consider a video calling app, a brainstorming tool, a team management software, or any other remote tools that may be helpful.
During meeting
- Taking notes is not only useful for future references, but it also shows that you care about what your team members have to say. Moreover, taking notes during and after a meeting helps you to use the learning from one conversation with a specific employee for any similar situation in the future with another employee (or even to solve your own problem).?Also, taking personal notes (i.e. recording your own thoughts about the issue) turns out to be useful when you have to do a performance review at the end of the year.
- 1:1 meetings are about employees and their needs. So, as a manager, make sure to ask as many questions as needed to get to the root of their workplace challenges and find the right solution. Apart from asking only technical questions, also ask about their morale to understand how they feel about their work and employer as a whole. Be genuinely interested in knowing your employees. Here are examples of great questions you can ask:
- Well-being: How are you feeling at work this week? Is there anything at work impacting your well-being or happiness? What part of your job is most stressful?
- Progress: What are your highest priorities this week? What priorities are you putting in the backlog? What support can help you finish your work more efficiently?
- Engagement: Do you feel comfortable and confident working with your team? Are you able to understand the goals and tasks assigned to you? What excites you most about what you do?
- Goals: What are your top goals this week? How is your career progressing towards meeting your goals? Is there an alignment between your professional goals and company objectives?
- Challenges: What clarity can I provide? What blockers have you come across? What can we do to improve as a team?
- Gratitude: What went well this past week? What are you thankful for? What do you benefit from these one-on-one meetings and your manager’s leadership style?
- Tell your side of the story. Next, share how you are doing at work. Talk about your work updates that may be relevant to the discussion. Seeing you opening up may help them to see you as a fellow employee instead of “the boss”. Thus, building trust. 1:1 meetings are two-way discussions. While talking about performance, it’s okay to share personal stories in similar situations. Bringing little vulnerability to the discussion helps to eliminate fear. Moreover, employee performance can sometimes be affected by issues outside of work.?Asking them how they are doing in their personal life (without being intrusive) will make them know you care about them on a personal level while simultaneously giving you a clearer picture of the root cause of performance fluctuations.
- Although the true purpose of 1:1 meetings is to recognize employee efforts and boost their morale, sometimes you will need to hold difficult conversations. Instead of criticizing their performance or behavior, talk about the high expectations you have of them. This would show them that you believe in them and thus encourage them to work harder. Also, the quicker you provide feedback about their performance the faster they can correct their course. Notice recurring patterns from different conversations, ask for their feedback, and modify your managerial style accordingly. This would not only help you become a better leader but also improve your team’s performance and trust in you when they see that their feedback is being valued by their boss. To uncover their performance blockers, listening empathetically is key. Leave the urge to jump to conclusions or provide quick solutions and actively engage in what they have to say.
After meeting
- Solutions are useful to the extent they are practical. At the end of the meeting, create a set of action points and a timeline to keep track of improvement. Having a clear roadmap would motivate employees to continuously improve their performance.
- Apart from taking notes during the 1:1 meeting, it is useful to keep a history of all previous 1:1 conversations in one place that gives you a better contextual understanding of an employee’s problems later. Whether you’re taking meeting notes or meeting minutes, if the discussion is not documented, did the meeting really happen? Be sure that your direct report has access to the notes you took during the one-on-one to refer back to.
- Ask for their feedback. Create a baseline by consistently asking your employee for their outlook after your one-on-one meeting. Has their outlook gotten worse, better, or stayed the same? Monitoring feedback can help you track engagement and identify red flags faster.
- Follow up. One-on-ones only work when they’re ongoing and consistent. Keep this commitment and you will create effective feedback loops and help build stronger connections with your team. What’s the point of making decisions and setting action items if you don’t check in on them? Remember to check in with your employee on what was discussed, the next steps, and any feedback given. They’ll appreciate the steps you take to ensure they feel heard.
With these tactics and approaches, you can not only improve your 1:1s but your overall relationship with your team.
As a manager, you can get a great hand with unleashing your team’s potential with efficient tools built into an all-in-one team optimization solution. Book a free demo with Opteamize now to empower your team: opteamize.io
