Conducting effective one-on-one meetings is one of the most important and impactful things you can do as a new manager. But often, new managers don’t have positive past experiences to pull from when it comes to how to run an effective one-on-one meeting or proper training available to teach them.
Why One-On-One Meetings Are Important
As a new manager, it can be confusing to figure out what you are expected to do, what is important and how you are performing. It is equally as difficult to figure out how you can best help those who are now reporting to you.
Depending on your role, you may have one but up to many people now directly reporting to you. They are also looking to you for guidance, support, direction and even resources.
Building positive, impactful, and collaborative relationships with your direct reports is one of the most essential parts of your job as a manager.
The way these meaningful relationships are built are through your one on one’s.
One on ones are meetings that occur every week between you and each of your direct reports. They are regular, private and focused on what your direct report needs. These are the backbone of the managerial relationship you have with your direct reports.
How Often Should You Have One-on-One Meetings?
These one-on-one meetings should occur regularly and with consistency. One-on-one meetings should last at least thirty minutes but they can also be longer. They are there for the purpose of supporting your direct reports, with technical problems they may be having, conflicts they may be having or to talk about their career and professional development growth.
It is so important that as a manager, you make sure these meetings happen. It is equally important that you make sure one on one’s with your own manager happens.
These meetings should occur consistently at the same time every week and you should take care to show up on time and prepared.
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Your First One-On-One With a Direct Report
It can be daunting to have a one on one with a new direct report. It is possible that you have no relationship with this person at all yet or that your new direct report was once a peer or even close friend.
In your first one-on-one meeting with a new direct report you should focus the meeting on discussing and establishing clear expectations and goals for the meetings going forward. The first one-on-one meeting should also focus on learning the preferences of new direct reports:
- How do they like to receive feedback?
- What would they most like help with?
- What is their preferred working style?
There are many articles that have a structured format for questions to ask your direct reports during your first one-on-one meeting.
These are the types of conversations that you want to have to make your future one-on-one meetings effective and these are also conversations that should be ongoing over the course of your relationship as you each change, evolve and grow as people as well as in your careers.
How to Prepare For a One-on-One Meeting
Part of holding an effective one-on-one meeting is to make sure that you are properly prepared ahead of time. You don’t want to just show up without having an idea of what you want to talk about or without having reviewed what you discussed in your last one-on-one meeting.
What you want to do to prepare for a one-on-one meeting as an effective manager:
- Review the notes you took from your one-on-one meeting last week
- Write down anything you want to be sure to touch on, including any questions you may have
- Complete any tasks that you committed to doing for your direct report in your last one-on-one. (This last step is what separates the truly extraordinary and effective managers from those that are just mediocre).
- After the meeting make sure you add any tasks you committed to doing to your own to-do list
What Should One-on-Ones Not Be Used For
One-on-ones are not status meetings so try not to turn them into status updates. You should be getting status updates from your team in some other fashion throughout the week.
An effective one-on-one is for the benefit of your team so you want to make sure that each one of your direct reports is getting what they want and need during these meetings. Status reports are boring and repetitive and miss the point of what a one-on-one is truly about.
A Final Note
One-on-one meetings when lead effectively can be powerful tools in your job as a manger and can also be incredibly impactful in the experience your direct report has at work while you are their manager. Spending the time to prepare for them properly and also learn how to lead with with confidence will serve you for the entirety of your management career.