Why are your 1on1s not awesome?

#1 Kickarse catch up series

The microwave, the bikini, ballpoint pen, antibiotics, Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Keller. Hitler, World War 2, the Great Smog of London and Agent Orange.

The 1940’s were a significant time of creation and destruction. Oh, and the performance review was also created. At its time it was a significant tool to decide whether a sales person would receive a bonus for their work.?

What makes me sad is that some workplaces are still stuck in this era. Thinking that a tool created in 1940 to measure performance is an annual, bi-annual or even quarterly conversation. This is old school and will generate performance, not high performance, at best. It turns the development of ourselves and our people into a process, not an intent.

What also floors me is that we wait for an organisation to set the tone on how often we connect with our people and the quality of the conversations. Why wait? If we know that the time we spend with our people matters – then why outsource this to the powers that be? It’s like outsourcing parenting to a school or another family. It’s not ok. It’s our gig.

There are 2 things that we need to focus on for our 1on1s to be what I call kickarse. The timing and calibre of these catch ups. Quantity and quality. Over the next 6 weeks I will be focusing on how we create these moments in time that will create a ripple effect for performance and meeting KPI’s. After all, they are directly connected. And yes, it’s absolutely possible.

I will leave you with this question to ponder. When you do catch up with your people, what would they say about them? Do they create energy or deplete them? And remember, this is not about you. It’s about sitting in their shoes. If you can’t do that, then I reckon a cool place to start is; What’s working in our catch ups and what could be better?

Do you think your catch ups could be better? And do you wanna learn how to make them kickarse??

Then sign up for my half day workshop, How to have kickarse catch ups here, or you can check out all my upcoming events here.?