Getting 1:1s Right

Why are 1:1 Meetings Helpful?

Meeting with your team members is one of the most valuable activities you can do as a manager.  They help you:

• Do better work: 1:1s  are a unique opportunity to understand your team members’ work in a level of detail you won’t get anywhere else. You’ll make better decisions about how to run your team, which improves performance. 

• Guide career development: 1:1s are the main place you’ll talk about people’s strengths, weaknesses, and challenges so you can shape the assignments they work on, the people they meet, and the skills they build.  

• Check-in on wellbeing: 1:1s are the best places to pick up on cues that your team may not be ok.  It’s a private setting where individuals may be more comfortable opening up about any struggles they’re having.

• Build personal connections and trust: showing up for your 1:1s and discussing the three areas above demonstrates to your team that you’re invested in them and their progress.  They’re one of the best ways to build trust between you and your team.

But just like there’s no model manager, there’s no ‘right’ way to do 1:1s.  How you approach them will reflect your own style, so take any of our suggestions that you feel fit with your own ideas.

“One-on-ones are your must-do meetings, your single best opportunity to listen, really listen, to the people on your team to make sure you understand their perspective on what’s working and what’s not working.”   Kim Scott, Radical Candor

How to Approach Your First 1:1s

Your first 1:1s will be different than the meetings you will have three or four months down the line as your relationship evolves.   These ones are more about setting the tone and the foundation for future meetings.

Here’s some tips for getting those first ones right.

• First impressions matter: show up on time (don’t cancel and re-arrange!), be thoughtful, and engaged. If that sounds simple, you’d be amazed how many managers get this wrong. 

• Don’t overcomplicate it: there’s potentially so much for you to talk about - career ambitions, working relationships, strengths, weaknesses, personal lives, areas for support, the list is endless.  But there’s lots of time and future meetings for that.  This is just about getting to know the other person and setting the tone for future 1:1s.

• Do a bit of prep: if you haven’t worked closely with the person before, familiarize yourself with the person’s work and background.  It’s never a good look for a manager not to know the basics.

• How to schedule it: let them know the purpose of the meeting, schedule no less than 45 mins and probably an hour.  You might want to say something like: 

Hi Catherine, over the next few days, I’m going to put some time in for our first one-on-one meeting.  I find these meetings really helpful for staying close to your work and career development, and understanding where I can best help you as your manager.  No need to prepare anything, I just want to catch up, and talk about how you think you’ll get most out of these meetings in future.’

Conversation Topics for First 1:1s

Your first 1:1s are about getting to know the other person and working out how the two of you can work together and support each other.  

You may have you own style of doing that but we’ve identified five potential areas of conversation:

• The introduction: before you get into any of the actual topics, there’s an opportunity to restate how you see these meetings as a key part of your support to the team member. It’s time that they know they’re going to get with you to discuss whatever they want to or need to (although your door is always open outside of scheduled 1:1s).

• Professional interests: this isn’t a big conversation about careers (we’ll cover that later in Career Development) but you do want to start learning about the work they enjoy, what they don’t, and what motivates them.

• Working preferences: you don’t want to start managing someone in a way that they dislike - you can learn more about what people will appreciate with a few simple questions. 

• Personal preferences: working out how best you can help your team through a bad day.

• Future 1:1s: the 1:1 is there to be most helpful to the team member, so worth gathering some thoughts on their preferences and how you both want to proceed.

Of course you don’t have to cover all these in your first meeting.  It might take a few.  Particularly because you’ll likely have some ongoing work/projects to discuss.  

If you need some prompts, here’s a few questions you could ask for each category.

(Also, no need to jump straight into any of these topics.  Studies have shown that small talk at the start of a meeting can make for a much happier one.  It gets the other person talking and involved in the meeting.)

Professional Interests

 "Why did you decide to work here?" 

  "Are you particularly excited about any opportunities?"

 "What projects do you like to work on?" 

"What projects would you rather not do?"

"Are there any goals you’re working towards at the moment?"

"Any surprises since you’ve joined, good or bad, that I should know about?"

"Is there anything you’d like my help with in the short term?"

Working Preferences

"How do you like to receive serious feedback? Do you prefer it in writing so you have time to digest it or are you comfortable with less formal feedback?" 

"How do you like to be praised for great work? In public or just in private?"

"Are there any manager behaviours which you know you hate?"

"What’s your ideal working environment? When and where do you find you do your best work?"

Personal Preferences

"What makes you grumpy? How will I know when you’re grumpy? How can I help you when you’re having a bad day?"

"How do I know when you’re in a bad mood or annoyed? Are there things that always put you in a bad mood that I should be aware of?"

"What’s your favorite way to treat yourself?"

Future 1:1s

"Have you had good 1:1s before? What did you like about them?"

"Ideally, how would you like these meetings to go?"

"When’s the best time to schedule these?"

Next Steps for Future 1:1s

After your first meeting, you’ll want to do the following:

• Set up future 1:1s: based on the feedback from your team members, find a time/schedule that’s going to work for you both (but not less than fortnightly).

• Take some notes: there will have been a bunch of things in that meeting that you’ll want to remember.  Take 15 mins to jot down everything that could be useful in future.

• Commit to a career conversation: we’re going to talk more about this in Career Development, but you can let your team members know it’s coming up.

Evolving your 1:1s into a Habit

As you move beyond the initial meetings, and you begin to establish deeper, more trusting relationships with your team members, you’ll adapt your approach to make the meetings most effective.

This section will address some of the different scenarios you’ll come across in your 1:1s and some techniques for navigating those.

‍Frequency, Length, and Cancelling

‘Understand that each time you bail on a 1:1 they hear, “You don’t matter”.  Michael Lopp

Some quick notes on these:

• Frequency: the most common frequencies for having 1:1s are weekly and fortnightly.  Anything less than this and you’re likely to forget/miss discussing things you should.

• Length: no less than 30 mins, preferably 45 mins.  Once you’ve small talked, and spent some time on pressing work issues, anything less than 30 mins doesn’t allow space to discuss weightier matters that may be on your minds.

• Cancelling: try not to cancel your 1:1s - it’s an automatic signal that something is more important than investing your time in your team, and decreases trust.  That said, people will understand that occasionally stuff comes up.  If you have to cancel, explain clearly why, and re-arrange.

Topics of Conversation

As you move into a regular rhythm of 1:1s, your topics of conversation will become more organic.  You should be building trust which means your team members raise topics proactively with you, rather than you having to draw them out. 

(Note that it can take some time to establish the trust for this to happen.  Don’t be disheartened if it takes a few weeks/months for your team to get used to raising topics with you - particularly if they’ve never had a manager who gave them good 1:1s).

At this stage, rather than coming up with topics, your main technique will often be listening carefully to what your team members have to say and responding. 

For example, Michael Lopp begins his 1:1s with a simple ‘How are you?’   As he says, it may seem a simple question, but it makes it very easy for the other person to respond with at least something, and then you can take the conversation from there. 

‘What’s the first thing they say? Do they deflect with humor? Is it the standard off-the-cuff answer? Or is it different? How is it different? What words did they choose and how quickly are they saying them? How long did they wait to answer? Did they even answer the question? Do you understand the answer isn’t the point, either? The content is merely a delivery vehicle for the mood and the mood sets your agenda’

You’ll usually find yourself responding to what your team members say in one of five ways:

• Clarifying: to respond well to what was said, you may need to ask for more information. For example: ‘Can you tell me more about that’ or ‘I really want to make sure I understand where you’re coming from, what do you mean by this?’.

• Mentoring: this is where you share some of your own experience or advice which you think the team member can use.  For example: ‘When I was in a similar position…’ or ‘Based on what I’ve seen, have you considered…’   

• Coaching: this is where you ask further questions of the team member to help them reach their own solution to their problem.  For example, ‘How do you think you could improve your chances of achieving that?’ or ‘What do you think is the best course of action?’.  

• Sponsoring: this is taking action yourself to help your team member’s development/aims.  For example, committing to put them in touch with someone, email a colleague about a question, or advocate for their inclusion in a project.

• More listening:  sometimes a team member isn’t looking for an immediate solution, they just want someone to listen to their problems and feel like they’re being heard.  This is a vent (which could turn into a rant) and intervening to try and mentor/coach/sponsor may actually be counterproductive).

You’ll find yourself testing out these approaches to see what works better in which moments, with which team members.  If you’re unsure, you can also ask.  For example, ‘Would you like some advice from me on this, or just to talk it through?’

Neha Batra has a great table which demonstrates the difference between mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring in different scenarios.

Some other prompts you could still end up using might include:

I know this quarter you’re focusing on (insert skill), has this helped with that?

I know we’re trying to do more of (insert focus area) on the team, how do you think we’re doing? 

How does your workload feel right now?

What’s the best use of our time today?

What would you like to do more of?

What would you like to do less of?

Are you getting the right support from your colleagues?

Is there anything that I can help you with?

Can I put you in touch with anyone over the next month? 

I know I’ve been busy this month with (insert task).  Were there times when I could have supported you better?

Staying Organized

Regular 1:1s can generate A LOT of information and insights.  Different managers have different ways of organizing all this information, but there’s generally three categories of information you’ll want to keep track of:

• Notes: insights from 1:1s that you want to privately keep track of for future reference.

• Shared agendas/notes: points from your 1:1s that would be helpful for both of you to keep a record of, often to create shared accountability. 

• To dos: a list of any actions that came out of the meeting that each of you commit to working on for next time.

Some adapt Google docs or wikis for this task, others use specialist people management software, whatever works for you and your team.

Troubleshooting 1:1s

At some point, you may feel a lack of engagement from your team members with your 1:1s.  Perhaps they’ve stopped bringing topics for discussion, or the conversation hasn’t flowed as freely, or worst case, they keep cancelling them.

This usually happens for one of three reasons, each need solving differently:

• They’re too busy: it could just be that they’re overworked.  Fortunately, you’re their manager and should be able to help with that.

• They don’t see the value: perhaps they’re not getting much out of the meetings.  That’s tough to hear, but gives you an opportunity to ask why and get the conversation moving again. For example:  ‘How could we use this time better?’ ‘What’s one thing that would help you with your work?’.  You could also tell a story about when 1:1s have previously been helpful for you to offer inspiration for how the two of you could use the time.  

• They don’t trust you: if it’s neither of the previous two, it’s trickier - that suggests they have time for the meetings, they see how they could be beneficial, but they just don’t trust you enough to discuss substantive issues.