Supercharge Your One-on-One Meetings

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Welcome to the hbr ideacast from harvard business review. I'm alison beard. We see a lot of advice about how to run more effective meetings, make sure the right people are in the room, circulate an agenda, solicit everyone's opinion, rotate the note taker, leave with action items. But most people don't think very carefully about the meetings that actually might be the most important. For individuals who want to progress in their careers and managers who want to get the best out of their team members, that meeting is the one on one. Most of us know that bosses and direct reports need to have regular check ins. But does that really happen in practice or do you mostly do it in the course of work and save the formal meeting for performance review time? Even if you are meeting regularly, are you being thoughtful about it? Do you have an agenda or do you just shoot the breeze? Are you accomplishing anything? Today's guest is here to explain why one on one meetings are so critical and how to make the most of them, whether in person or virtual. Steven Rogelberg is Chancellor's professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He wrote the book Glad we the Art and Science of one on one Meetings as well as the HBR article Make the Most of youf One on one Meetings. Stephen, welcome.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

So let's start with the current state of things. Most organizations do require bosses to do annual or biannual or quarterly performance reviews with their reports. And a lot of managers I think do dutifully put check ins with individual team members on the calendar. But why don't we think more carefully about one on ones beyond that?

So in our research with a host of organizations, we have found none, none that actually provide any training to their managers around one on one meetings. I have found only two that explicitly provide guidance that managers should be doing this with their folks on a regular cadence and monitoring whether it's actually happening. So basically it's a free for all. Like many things, managers just tend to recycle their past experiences and that's problematic when those past experiences are far from optimal.

So what are some of the common mistakes that you see made beyond just not having them?

Oh, there's so many. So one common mistake is the manager doing the majority of the talking as opposed to the direct doing the majority of the talking. Another common mistake is just the wrong cadence. So a typical cadence is often once a month and you just don't get the same benefits as if that cadence is weekly or bi weekly. Having no agenda or plan of action is another common mistake. Falling into the status update trap is another one. Not asking well rounded questions, not thinking about the personal needs of the direct, and just focusing on the tactical needs. Not involving the direct enough into the conversation. A weak start, a weak end. Frequent cancellations. These are some of the most common problems that derail one on ones.

Yeah, and I have a really good relationship with my boss and we have regular one on ones. But I will admit that sometimes we, we fall into some of those pitfalls. What are the benefits that we're missing out on for individuals, teams and organizations when we forget about one on ones or we sail through them and don't do them, you know, make all of those mistakes that you just described.

So an effective one on one approach leads to so many positive outcomes. In many regards, it's one of the greatest leadership opportunities. Effectively doing one on ones promotes employee engagement. It promotes retention of your top talent. Doing effective one on one seems to elevate team success. Anytime you elevate the success of those that report into you, well, that's a reflection of you as a manager. So good one on ones also are tied to managerial success. And furthermore, in many regards, a good one on one is the front line for your inclusion efforts. Right. The one on one is where we can truly see our directs. So it's critical on that front too. Also want to say that one of the subtle outcomes of excellent one on ones is your own personal life satisfaction. The research is pretty clear on life satisfaction. That helping is one of the key predictors of it. And one on ones are just that perfect opportunity to help others, give to others, and through both, experience increased life satisfaction.

So why don't organizations train managers to be better in engaging in these kinds of meetings or even mandate that they have them?

You know, it's so interesting. There are so many blind spots when it comes to the world of meetings. We have individual leader blind spots. So leaders think they are better at doing these things than their directs say they are. And then organizations, I think they just assume that managers can do these things and do them well. And this assumption is just misguided as our research generally shows that around 50% of one on one are not rated optimally. And interestingly, if you look at organizational systems to kind of monitor the investment in meetings and one on ones, they just don't exist. You don't find content on engagement surveys, you don't find systems that help bring feedback to the managers to provide that enlightenment. And there's a host of really good applications out there that can facilitate this anonymous feedback gathering. I love for example, what this company called Kairos is doing where they are promoting, you know, the gathering of feedback from directs so that the manager can truly gain insights. You know, it's so fascinating to me. Meetings are this multi, multi billion billion billion dollar work activity and yet we don't monitor that investment. So the parallel is it, for example, right? We invest tons of money in it and yet we to see whether that investment is truly working for us. Meetings are more expensive than it. I'm going to repeat that. Meetings are more expensive than it and yet we're not doing things to monitor that investment. And without that monitoring, we're not able to provide feedback to leaders. Right. Without providing feedback then we can't hold them accountable. And when you couple that with that leader blind spot, you have the recipe for stagnation.

Yeah, it sounds like the problem with one on one meetings is not necessarily that there's so much time and energy being invested in them and they're not being done as effectively as they could, but that it's like an opportunity lost. Right.

That's a fabulous summary. In one of our research projects we asked people, do you want more or less one on ones with their manager? And so initially we thought the people who would say that they want less one on ones would just be a function of their workload. Right. Or the fact that they have so many other meetings on their calendar. What we found is that when employees are getting good one on ones with their manager, no matter how busy they are, no matter how many meetings they have, they want more. And in fact, when we ask employees of different organizational levels how many one on ones they want with their manager, you know, we assumed that those more entry level employees, those first line supervisors, that they would want the most. Right. But we found just the opposite. More senior managers wanted the most amount of one on ones. And I think that's because they know how critical they can potentially be to their success. A one on one meeting is the stage for leadership. It is where the employee experiences you as a human being and as a leader. Every minute that you spend in one on ones truly is time that is well spent and that you ultimately will receive all kinds of positive outcomes from. A subtle one is that when leaders are having regular one on ones with their people, what they generally notice is that Employees have less spontaneous interactions throughout the week. Basically, they save their questions or concerns or thoughts for that one on one because they know it's coming. So managers wind up having more time in their days for them to get into flow and to engage in deep work.

So let's talk now about how to do one on ones better. First, what is the right cadence?

The data that has been collected generally shows that a weekly cadence is most ideal, followed by the bi weekly cadence. In both of those cadences, you're building momentum, you're tracking themes throughout it. So it just has this natural flow to help create a nice foundation for the relationship. And the issue with monthly one on ones or a less frequent cadence is that they're plagued with a recency bias. Right. So when we're meeting with someone just once a month, the things that we talk about tend to be the things that just happened that past week. So the monthly doesn't seem to really be as beneficial. It's still better than nothing, but definitely not as good as the weekly or bi weekly. And I will say that some managers get into this trap of actually having more than one one on one a week. And that's also not a good idea. Right, because that can lead to feelings of just being micromanaged. So a manager doing a weekly one on one for 20, 25 minutes or a bi weekly, you know, for 45 minutes, that seems to yield the greatest gains.

And then what about location? You know, if you're not virtual, should it be in the office? Should it be somewhere more casual like a coffee shop? Do you like walking meetings?

So we actually collected data on employee preferences. We don't know from the research exactly which location yields the greatest outcomes. We don't have those data, but we do have people's preferences. And generally, you know, people have a leaning for face to face in person, but it's not a strong majority. They tend to prefer the face to face if it's going to be talking about some tricky issues. The location that was rated the most favorably was actually just doing it in the manager's office or conference room. The location that received the lowest ratings was doing it in the direct's office. And then taking a walk or meeting in a coffee shop received basically bimodal support. There were a lot of people who really preferred this approach, but then there was a similar number of people who didn't want it. So this is just where you want to have that conversation. You know, ultimately a one on one meeting is a meeting that's orchestrated by the manager. But it's for the direct and therefore let's give the direct voice, right? Let's help them shape it. If they want to take a walk, well, let's take a walk. And there's actually lots of good reasons for taking a walk. When two humans are walking next to each other, they actually tend to disclose more are meaty issues for whatever reason. So while there's no absolute truth when it comes to where to meet, there are a variety of options. And I think in many regards the best managers just look to mix it up and involve the direct in helping make the best choice.

Okay, so now let's dig into content. How do you prepare for these kinds of meetings? First, you know, maybe tell me how the manager should get ready and then how the employee might.

Preparation absolutely matters. Both parties should actually be keeping a little bit of a journal or a log or a running draft email where they're making note of topics and issues that they would like to broach. So that when it comes to actually deciding on what to talk about, in many regards that work has been done. I've even seen some managers and I love this practice is they create just an asynchronous document for each of their people. And really throughout that, you know, they're building the agenda, people are saying, hey, oh, let's be sure to talk about this on Friday or what have you. So I love that approach as well. And then we can also kind of track some progress that way. But in those efforts, it's essential that the manager keeps cueing their people that they just don't want these one on ones to be about the day to day work, that they also want to be able to consider longer horizon issues, career development issues and the like. And then throughout this, it's just that constant reminder, and this is a reminder to the manager themselves, just that reminder that this meeting is going to be for you team member and your agenda is really what's going to drive this. In fact, one of the greatest predictors we have of one on one meeting success is the direct either creating the agenda themselves or doing it in concert with the leader. When the leader creates the gender on their own, ratings of one on one effectiveness were just not nearly as good.

Yeah, what about if you as a manager do have something that you need to share, whether it's good news or bad news or advice, do you signal that beforehand? Do you call a different meeting?

Yes. So you do want to signal that you still want to privilege what's on the minds of the employee in those. And if you run out of time and aren't able to get to your issues, then you absolutely can schedule a another conversation around that. The employees issues and topics, they don't have to be signaled to you, you'll be fine. This is not a vulnerable activity for you. But certainly if you have issues or topics, I do think it's helpful to signal so that people are just kind of primed that this is something to be discussed. The meeting shouldn't start with you unloading your topics. The meeting should still start when questions such as what's on your mind? How can I help you? What are your challenges and where can I support you? Is there any information that you might need around priorities? Is there any feedback that I could share with you that could be helpful? So we still want to make sure that the spotlight is really focused on meeting the needs of the direct.

So let's talk about that. You're in the meeting itself. You are asking open ended questions, you're focusing on your direct report. What else should you aim for in terms of tone, body language, how much you talk versus the other person?

So I'm even gonna back up a little bit. You know, one of the things that I talk about in the book that I just, I think this is such a neat finding is something called the Pavilion effect. What the research shows is your attitude towards that direct really drives a lot of your behavior in the one on one towards that direct. So for example, if you think the direct, you know, is lazy or is really not going to run with things, then that shapes the questions you ask. But on the other side, if you go in there with this attitude, that this direct can grow, that this direct is motivated, your questioning and listening fundamentally changes. You're much more engaged. So if you have a problem employee that should be addressed through exit, if, but if you're having one on ones, the hope is that you're going in there with this perspective, that this employee can thrive and that you can be a valuable agent in that thriving. And then once you're facilitating that conversation, there's a lot of things that you want to attend to. I mean, obviously you hit some great ones. I mean, these open ended questions are key. Asking questions and clarification is key. Ultimately what we want to see happen is the manager not only addressing the tactical needs of the directs, but also their personal needs. And what I mean by personal needs is their need to feel trusted, their need to feel respected, and the need to feel included. And the best way to address those needs is through empathetic listening. You know, authentic communication, kind and supportive behaviors, appropriate vulnerability and involving directs in the conversation, I think is really, really, really important. So when a man, when a direct brings to you an issue, your job is not to solve it right that moment. Your job is to help the direct hopefully come to their own great solution through good questions and maybe suggestions. Because then ultimately, if it's their solution, they're going to be much more bought into it and then it becomes a, a greater developmental opportunity for them. But one of the problems is that when a direct brings a problem to a manager, a, the manager often jumps in too fast. B, when the direct does share a solution, the manager often will correct it. They'll say, oh, yeah, but here's another approach, and that's a mistake. Basically what we want managers to do is to start picking their battles more carefully when it comes to solutioning. So if there's a big meaningful gap between your Durex idea and yours, fine, intervene. But big and meaningful really is the key. If there's not a big and meaningful gap, let it go. Go with the Jurex idea. It might just work better than anything that you have in mind. And if it doesn't, well, you can provide conversation afterwards to kind of debrief about it. But this is the greatest way of truly helping your direct feel that sense of trust and respect and inclusion.

One of your points of advice is to be flexible. You talk in the book title about it being an art and a science. So you really do have to come in with a plan, but then also feel your way through it based on the reactions that you're getting from your meeting partner. And you also say these meetings need to end well. So explain what you mean by that.

You know, this is such a common problem in meetings, period. They just don't seem to have a proper close. And in one on ones, it's extremely problematic. With a few minutes left, the meeting has to stop. And at that point, everyone does a recap of what was talked about, what was committed to by the various parties. There's some, some note taking that's being done. You know, you're identifying topics that you want to be sure to discuss at the next meeting. So it just provides this great sense of closure. And that's just not happening. So often these meetings just end with the, oh, we're out of time. And that is not at all useful. It's also important to try to end the one on one on a positive note. Even if the meeting has hit some challenging issues, you can still end on a positive Note. So look for that opportunity to express your confidence in the individual to say thank you for sharing like you did. I understand this is challenging. So anything you can do to kind of help that direct report leave the meeting feeling inflated as opposed to deflated is helpful.

What about people who have a lot of direct reports and then a lot of other work responsibilities? Is there a danger that all of their time is tied up in these meetings, even though they are incredibly important, but that leaves them with no time to do anything else?

There's always that danger. But I would say that if these meetings are actually being done effectively, it's just there's no loss. I absolutely see it as no matter how busy you are, these one on ones yield tremendous value. If you do have so many directs, then you decrease the amount of time you have with each one of them. I am okay with you having 15 minutes a week of awesome, focused time. Like that's livable. We can potentially spread them out more over two weeks. So if it's necessary that we only need 15 or 20 minutes every other week, so be it. That's okay as long as we do it well and as long as we leverage some of our asynchronous tools. Right. Because there's a host of asynchronous activities we can do to continue to provide support to the direct throughout the week. Also, some managers have even played with this idea of every week. Every other week the one on one is actually done with a senior member of the team, someone who is more experienced, and then the other week the manager does it. That's not necessarily going to yield the same real positive outcomes associated with that managerial point of contact, but it still helps. Helpful. So there's a variety of different approaches that we can do, but I would also say let's try to trim the fat out of other activities during our days and weeks. So this is a critical activity. This is like drinking water, right? We can't stop drinking water, but we can stop eating cookies. So let's see if we have any cookies in our calendar that maybe we could start to decrease, eliminate or shrink.

So for managers, bosses out there, what is your advice to them about what they can start doing tomorrow to get better at this?

The first thing that managers need to know is that this meeting is for their directs that they're facilitating, they're orchestrating, but it's not their meeting. And so I think that's the first thing is getting the philosophy firmly implanted into their head. I mentioned earlier about, you know, we want directs to talk the most in these meetings, but managers often still dominate. And so by keep reminding yourself this is meeting for meeting for the direct, hopefully that won't happen. But it's still hard, by the way, because the research actually shows that talking a lot activates the same areas of your brain that sex and good food do. So we talk a lot because it feels good. So let's firmly root ourselves that these meetings are not about micromanaging, it's about elevating, supporting, energizing, clarifying the tactics and the logistics. That's kind of the easy stuff. But I still really stress the art part of this because you have to pick amongst those choices so that it fits who you are and fits who your directs are. But ultimately the tactics, you know, that we can execute as long as we have firmly embedded that what the true goal of these things are. And I'm going to give you just another little silly example, but I personally love this one. If you firmly have in your head that this meeting is for the direct, you're actually going to to ask the direct, how are you? In a different way. So when we ask somebody, how are you? Like, we know most people just say, fine, good. We go on autopilot. So it's not a good question. But if you firmly embrace that this meeting is to help the direct, and you say, how are you? But I want you to answer that question on a one to ten point scale with ten being great and one being really bad. Where are you? And then what happens is the direct is going to give you a six, they're going to give you a seven, they're going to give you a five, and now you have something to work with and then the conversation becomes real and not just automatic. So you can just see how once you've ingrained that philosophy, the purpose of these things, the conversations just become substantive, valuable and meaningful.

Yeah, asking for a scale forces the person being asked to think about why or why not. There are 10. And so you start to think about what's holding you back. And what about for employees who have distant or aloof bosses? How did they ensure that they're getting the one on one meetings that they need?

I hate that question. Not because it's not a great question, but this is one of those things that employees don't have much power with. They certainly can schedule though their own one on one with their manager. They can certainly say, hey, can we meet? I would love to talk to you about X, Y and Z. And then if it's a really positive meeting, then they can say, could we do this again in a couple weeks? So basically, they can start to try to build this cadence by putting themselves out there. Now, none of this at all assures that the manager does a good job in this. And the manager might not be heavily into facilitating and they might take it over and dominate, but at least you're doing what you can do to get these things to happen. If the meeting is happening. I do want to say that the direct does have a responsibility in all this. It does take two to tango. So, like, I build content into the book about what directs can do to make these one on ones work. You know, one is they have to know what they need. You can't get what you need unless you know what you need. So you really have to stop and reflect and say, okay, I'm having this one on one. What do I want to get out of this? And outline it, write it down, get yourself in the right mental space. It's analogous to the visualization that athletes do all the time before they compete. So visualize what you need. Another critical behavior. When you do ask for help from your manager, make sure you do it in a way that you are gathering information that allows you to address the issue. So basically, when it comes to help seeking, there's two approaches. There's dependent dependent help seeking and autonomous help seeking. Dependent help seeking is where you basically are just asking someone for the solution. Autonomous help seeking is when you ask people for guidance and thoughts and perspectives. And the research shows that those employees who engage in more autonomous help seeking, they tend to be your best performers. And it's the exact opposite for dependent help seeking. So the takeaway of this for the directs is when you go into that one on one, know what you want, know what you need, go in there with some potential ideas and solutions, seek guidance, but don't seek quick fixes. Be a collaborative partner, owning the issues and problems, demonstrating to your manager that you are fully engaged in your work and your career.

Well, Steven, thank you so much. That's been super helpful advice for both managers and their employees about how to make one on ones better.

Oh, you're welcome. I love chatting with you. It was such a pleasure.

That's Stephen Rogelberg, Chancellor's professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He wrote the book Glad We Met, the Art and Science on One on One Meetings, as well as the HBR article Make the Most of youf One on One Meetings. And we have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find them at hbr.org podcasts or search HBR on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Thanks to our team, Senior Producer Mary Du, Associate Producer Hannah Bates, Audio Product Manager Ian Fox, and Senior Production Specialist Rob Eckhart. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I'm Alison Be. Sa.