Make 1-on-1s More Effective
Tell me if you've ever been here – I am headed on vacation and a few hours flying internationally, I have had a really busy couple of weeks, and I have a cold to top it all off. So I have a Triple Threat situation going on and with that in mind, I decided to throw together a short and sweet tactical episode for the podcast today because when I am in leadership seasons where life is really full, I need things that are easy, accessible, implementable and don't require a lot of brain space or complicated steps.
I know a lot of leaders can feel that way where we get super slammed and we tend to go into freeze mode or tend to just pay attention to the disasters or the crisis in front of us. But the reality is, there are still ways to get little tactical leadership highlights into your day like this podcast, so that you can still be more strategic - when the to-do list is a mile long, you need quick wins that aren't just easy, but strategic wins.
So today, we're going to talk about how you can lead more effective one-on-one meetings with your teams.
This is a topic that came up with a colleague this week, and one on ones are essential for building strong relations between a manager and their team member. But sometimes I think they're the first thing to get pushed, because it feels like you're already in the daily work with the person if you're collaborating really closely. But one-on-ones have a strong purpose, one that can’t be ignored. Let’s get into it!
On this episode you’ll hear…
The importance of easy, accessible, and implementable leadership development tricks - especially among a mile long to-do list
Why 1-on-1s are essential for building strong relationships between management and team members
Three steps to make your 1-on-1s better immediately
How to help your employee/team overcome a challenge or mistake using your 1-on-1
Ready for more?
Listen in:
-
** This is a raw, unedited transcript
Chaili Trentham 00:00
Tell me if you've ever been here I am headed on vacation and a few hours flying internationally, I have had a really busy couple of weeks, and I have a cold to top it all off. So I have a Triple Threat situation going on. And so I decided that I threw together a short and sweet tactical episode for the podcast today because when I am in leadership seasons where life is really full, I need things that are easy, accessible, implementable, and don't require a lot of brain space or complicated steps, because there's just not time for it right. And I'm sure a lot of leaders can feel that way. I know a lot of leaders can feel that way where we get super slammed. And so we tend to go into freeze mode or tend to just pay attention to the disasters or the crisis in front of us. But the reality is, there are still ways to get little tactical leadership highlights into your day like this podcast, so that you can still be more strategic. When the to do list is a mile long, you need quick wins that aren't just easy, but strategic wins. So we're going to talk about how you can lead more effective one on one meetings with your teams. This is a topic that came up with a colleague this week, and one on ones are essential for building strong relations between a manager and their team member. But sometimes I think they're the first thing to get pushed, because it feels like you're already in the daily work with the person if you're collaborating really closely. But one on one has a strong purpose. It provides a space for conversation and feedback and that loop to be happening regularly so that you're building trust on top of the work load that you have, perhaps with that person. And ultimately, it's the space to facilitate professional development with your team members. So as a leader, they're really important. However, not all one on ones are created equal, right? Some can be unproductive, some can be unfocused, and even demotivating. And that's often why it can feel frustrating and like you want to just cancel it because it feels unfocused, like unfocused time. But honestly, when you're a person in that situation where your supervisor is canceling or is actually not using them to the fullest potential that goes beyond demotivating, because then it feels like your supervisor or leader doesn't care or isn't invested. So let's consider how you can double down on your leadership style by becoming a supervisor who clearly lays out one on ones as a valuable and effective tool for developing others and engaging collaboratively. So here's some steps for this. Okay, we have three steps to make your one on ones better immediately. Step number one, set the agenda. The first step is to set the agenda because before the meeting managers or leaders should be asking their direct reports to provide that agenda of topics that they want to discuss, it's their chance to bring stuff to the table. managers or leaders should also come to the meeting with their own agenda. With topics like you want to ask for that status on a current project, or give feedback on recent work or connect about future goals that you have in mind for your employee. Having an agenda ensures that the meeting stays focused and that all topics are covered. And if you don't get to them, and it's not a priority, right, then put it into the agenda for the next week or the next if they're every couple weeks the next couple weeks. So lets me give you an example. Let's say a manager named Jen is meeting with her direct report named Sarah. And before the meeting Jensen Sara an email asking her to provide an agenda of topics she wants to talk about. So Sarah says jen an email with the following topics, feedback on her recent presentation, progress on a project and some future goals. Jen comes to the meeting with her own agenda, which includes discussing Sarah's performance over the last month identifying areas of improvement, and discussing ways to help her reach her goals. So here we are collaborating even on that agenda, where it's something that Jen wanted to talk to Sarah about her recent performance, Sarah is looking for feedback. And so when you see that those agendas are going to overlap, it gives opportunity for a really great meeting, right? And for really honest communication to be happening both ways. Step number two to up these one on ones is to listen and engage. This is really important one on ones are not just a time for you, as the leader to give feedback to your direct reports. It's a really important time for your employees to share their thoughts and their ideas. And managers and leaders need to work to listen really actively, right? It's like listening with your spouse when they're like I just want you to listen not to solve the problem, right? So listen, and then ask open ended questions to encourage them to share their perspective right to get their ideas flowing. Even if it's something where they're coming to you for help, you can ask those open ended questions to kind of weed through how they're feeling or how they might approach it and eventually help them come to the solution on their own. You're coaching them in that way. This helps build trust, and leaders, you can get a better understanding of their goals and concerns and career aspirations and the ways that they would approach problems. And you actually can pull back layers and understand their work better if you're listening first before engaging. So let's give Jen and Sarah an opportunity to do this. This is the example during the meeting. Jen is listening actively to Sarah's feedback on her recent presentation. Remember, Sarah wanted to know a little bit more about that. Taking notes is what Jen is doing, and asking follow up questions to clarify. And then she asks open ended questions about Sarah's progress on a project and her future goals. And after hearing those answers, gets to integrate her own perspectives and ideas and encourage Sarah, in those spaces where there's alignment, and maybe give some feedback or some insight in places where she's feeling like Sarah was off on her self awareness or her self rating on how she was doing, right. It's opening up the conversation, but it's letting your employees go first. And step number three to up your one on ones is to follow up. So this is hard, right? You have a one on one you run into your next meeting, it's really difficult to follow up. But that's the final step after the meeting managers should be summarizing key takeaways and action items, share them with the direct reports, right? Share it with their employees that's in the room with them. But then, from there, once you have that clear understanding of what was discussed in what needs to be done, what are the action items that come from that one on one, you have to follow up right? So know where those aren't write them down and have it as a follow up point for either the next one on one, or for the next time you see them in motion, right. So if Sarah's talking about how she wants to do something better in a presentation next time, you might be in a presentation with her later that week, you see that she shifted and made a change to her behavior, the way she was presenting or the way she interacted with a client. And you have the opportunity to to call it out in that moment and follow up and say, Hey, I noticed what you did there and making that change that we talked about your one on one and it went great. How did you feel about it? Or it went great, and he just wanted to let you know that I saw that. And that's a huge step. Good job, right. So that follow up in the moment is so important, right? Because it shows that you are following through and that you care, and that their development is important. And with that, managers should also follow up on their own tasks, right? If your employee is asking you a question, and you as the leader, like, that's great question, I'm gonna find you that answer, it's really important that you actually do that and follow up via email, send them a message, bring it up in the next one on line, but follow through with both sides of that. So your employees gonna follow through with whatever they brought to the agenda, and you're gonna follow through to. But this is obviously when things are going smoothly, it's important to acknowledge the fact that leading an effective one on one meetings will always be a smooth process, right. In some cases, your employee or whoever is reporting to, you may need to deliver news about a project they failed on or a mistake that they've made or something that they have dropped the ball with. And this is the moment for them to bring it up. In these situations, it's really important for leaders to remain calm, and be empathetic and focused on finding solutions. And here's what I was thinking about. So often think about times that people who are leading have kept something quiet or have kept something a secret because they're embarrassed or feel shame or are afraid to show their failure. If you have an employee bring something to you in a one on one that is negative, like they dropped the ball bombed a project, whatever it is missed a deadline. First recognize that that's a really brave thing, and they feel safe enough to bring that to you. So be empathetic there. And then that's the place to be focused on finding solutions. You can skip over reprimanding them or blowing up, you can take a deep breath. And you can encourage them to share more perspectives and ideas and on how to address the issue and then offer support and guidance to help them over the overcome that challenge whatever it is, and I promise that that will go further than making them feel awful or shameful, or embarrassed. And instead, you're using that space in a one on a one on one to become extremely productive in how you problem solve and move forward with that trust that you've built because you're having these one on ones and they feel safe enough to bring it there. So let's say that during a one on one meeting Hi, I'm Sarah, for employee who we've been talking about tells Jen that she dropped the ball missed a crucial deadline on a project, right? That can happen a lot. Instead of blowing up, here's what Jen is going to do. As a good leader, she's going to take a deep breath, maintain composure, and encourage her to share her perspective on what happened, what went wrong. And then Jen can listen carefully. We go back to that, listen, and then engage step listen carefully, empathizes with her situation, acknowledges that now this is a challenge, and offers support in moving forward or offers constructive criticism on what can happen next, how you can change the behavior, right. And then together, they discuss potential solutions to get the project back on track and look and look big picture at how this impacts may be other people on the team that might be impacted by that big deadline. And that's where as a leader, you really get to then guide forward. And so Jen can help Sarah with that solution. But also, this is the opportunity to do a little post mortem and decide on how things could be done differently for the next project to meet deadlines, like if that's the issue. So let me recap real quick. Three Steps to leading more effective one on ones as a leader one set the agenda to listen and engage, three, follow up, okay, by following those steps in your one on ones, I know that you can create more productive, meaningful and impactful one on ones tomorrow, because you're just going to reshape your thinking a little bit. Even if you've already been leading really great one on ones give this a try. Because it will lead to stronger relationships, and stronger relationships lead to higher engagement and ultimately better results, right? Because you're solutioning in these meetings. And when leaders prioritize building relationships like this with team members through effective one on ones, they're also building a team that communicates well, this means that team members are more likely to collaborate better in the future, share more ideas work together effectively with other team members, right? Strong communication. This is so essential for building high performing teams, and one on ones are a really important part of this process. So let's work to get better at them this week. Okay, cheers.