Great 1:1 - Making it productive and meaningful

Happy New year to All of You and Your wonderful families! Hope the year has started off on a very good note!
It is the start of the New year and a chance to Write 365 pages of Sheer magic in your life-book.

I am sure each of you in the corporate world would be having good discussions with your Boss, Your teams, etc. periodically. Here are some tips (with host of inputs from the web) to make it as Effective as it can be! (Think WIN-WIN)

Make Your 1:1's productive – The Basics!: (Yes, these are basics)
1. Do them at the same time each week - make them recurring meetings so you can get into a weekly rhythm. Schedule them for an hour, although you can shorten them during weeks when you have little to discuss.
2. Don't cancel them. The easiest way to communicate to an employee that they're not important is to cancel their 1:1, no matter what the reason. If a conflict comes up, try to reschedule the 1:1 at another time on the same day, and apologize for doing so. Cancelling a 1:1 is worse than never scheduling one at all.
3. Take notes and prepare - in all of your meetings take notes on follow up items. Use those notes to prepare for the next meeting, roll the notes from that meeting into the next meeting, and so on... Having a meaningful conversation with anyone takes time.

As you’ll see in a moment, you start with an opener where you figure out where everyone is mentally, which builds conversational momentum into having a conversation of consequence

4. Let them drive (to start). Don't start a 1:1 by piling more work on employees. Encourage them to drive the agenda and bring a list of things they'd like your advice on or to discuss. You can try to bring these out by simply asking, "What can I help you with?"
5. Go fishing. Ask open-ended questions to try to ferret out concerns. They can be questions about a specific project ("How's project X going?") or even more broad ("What's keeping you up at night lately?")
6. Be transparent and honest. By encouraging your employees to raise real concerns you're going to get some tough questions. If you can't answer them, tell your employee that. If you do choose to answer, answer honestly and err on the side of transparency. If they point out a problem on the team acknowledge it and respond by telling them what you're doing to fix it. If they think they're due for a promotion and you don't, reset their expectations by doing a gap analysis.
7. Discuss career development. Every few 1:1's make sure to step away from project discussions and have a higher-level discussion about the employee's career and satisfaction on the team. These are sometimes called "stay interviews". Check in on what the employee's specific goals are and what they think will make them satisfied in their job in the coming months. If their goal is to be promoted, review the different things they need to achieve or demonstrate to move them further down that path.
8. Ask for course correction. You won't always get answers, but every couple 1:1's with an employee ask them, "What could I be doing better as a manager?" You can get some really great guidance this way, and it's much better to get this feedback throughout the year and act on it than be surprised on it at review time when you hear about it from your own boss.
9. Give course correction. Performance issues grow over time. Try to spot patterns early and give gentle feedback to reverse performance issues. Strengthen the tone of your feedback the longer the performance issue persists.
10. Coach them on communication. The one skill that can benefit any employee throughout their career is clear communication. Use your 1:1's as opportunities to coach your employees on communication. Ask them to write brief docs on relevant topics. If they are unclear explaining something, probe until you understand and then replay the point back to them, as an example.
11. Relax and enjoy - over time you can build up a very good relationship with most people simply through this time investment. Even though you may need to discuss tough issues, try to build up enough trust and openness between you that you can enjoy solving problems and working to make the company better. Too much tension gets in the way of problem solving.
12. Make it about them. Demonstrate the clear personal value of feedback. Consider why employees benefit from what you are asking them to participate in. Integrate into things people already do so you ensure employees will want to engage.
13. Separate feedback from compensation. Ensure that employees are focused on learning, and using feedback to improve instead of defending their performance. Rather than appraising, or judging behavior, focus on discussing performance in the context of coaching.
14. Make it social. Performance is about people, not process. Company goals must align to people’s individual goals. Making it easy to get feedback from more than one person. Allow it to become an organic process, where the team has a say in how feedback is done. This allows you to make the feedback bottom up. Gives power to your team and creates personal meaning for them.
15. Get managers on board. Employees are motivated by active coaching, feedback and input from their managers. Managers have to see how your process helps them get the work they care about - selling, building, servicing, etc. - done. If it doesn't you'll be seen as reducing value, not creating it.
16. Make it real time. In a real-time world, it doesn’t make sense to wait six months for helpful advice on how you can improve. Make goals and feedback real by making them part of regular operations. Rather than thinking about goals once a year, adapt your behaviors to support them in real time.

In the day-to-day running around, spending a few hours a week sitting in meetings can feel like a big-company practice that doesn't solve the issues of the day.

The reality is that 1-1's can add a whole new level of speed and agility to your company. 1:1's are a powerful tool for a manager has, to engage with his team; 1-1's are a crucial part of the "Operating system" of how a company runs.

A company lives or dies by:
• Getting the best people to join the company
• Keeping them engaged and productive
• Making great decisions about what these people should work on

Leadership  <--> Management  <--> Employees
Vision                 Information           Tasks
Goals                 Projects
Strategy
Management priorities          Problem solving
People – rewards, feedback

But let's think about what you get for that investment and alignment to Management’s Priorities.

1) Coaching and feedback
Coaching and feedback are imperative, but many of us struggle doing a good job.

Feedback should be:
• Immediate - the best time to give feedback is right after you observed the job performance. Did someone do a great job in a meeting? Tell him that right after the meeting.
• Continuous - feedback should happen year round, not just around performance review time.
• Informed - by feedback from peers, subordinates, even customers. Never rely solely on your own observations.

The regular cadence of 1-1's can allow you to offer feedback regularly, and it can ensure that feedback is informed by other team members.
• You addressed problems (if any) quickly
• Team feels their opinion is sought and valued
• Other team members gain valuable feedback
• You may have headed off escalating tensions between different team members
• You learned that you need to improve how you are asking your managers to work with each other.

Without the regular heartbeat of your 1-1's it may have taken several weeks for you to gather the information you need and work the issue. In the meantime, the problem may have blown up beyond repair. An investment of a few hours may have saved the company hundreds of hours down the line.

2) Better and faster decision making
You can share Top management focus areas with your team, worked it with them in your 1-1's, then get prepared which ensures that You
• Do not have to scramble - you use meeting time that you already had scheduled
• Did not panic anyone - you don’t have to schedule any last-minute emergency meetings
• Gave your team time to generate ideas and contribute
• Got a pulse on how your team is feeling and soothed concerns they may have

3) Communication and transparency
Quick, accurate, and transparent communication is the lifeblood of any company. Everybody needs to know what is going on at the company so that they know best how to contribute and feel invested in the company's success.
You never want your team to hear important news through the rumor mill. But in many cases you do what to give your more senior team member a heads up on important news so that they can help you deliver it and manage the aftermath.

What can be accomplished?
• Your most senior people have an opportunity to help with transition, given them a learning opportunity
• They feel trusted and more engaged going forward
• Your CEO gets input on what issues to address regularly
• Your managers were equipped to walk their teams through the news the following week

4) Team engagement
Now let's look at what is happening at this company:
• Everyone at the company gets time with their manager regularly. Issues don't fester, and emotions don't get pent up
• Everyone get regular feedback while they can still act it
• The team sees that decisions are made quickly
• Managers are improving quickly since they are trained and included in what is happening
• Managers seem in sync with each other and are delivering a consistent message.

The sound that surrounds successful regimen of 1:1s is silence. All of the listening, questioning, and discussion that happens during a 1:1 is managerial preventative maintenance.

The cliché is “People are your most valuable resource”. I would argue they are your only resource. Computers, desks, building, data centers… Whatever. All of those other tools only support your one and only resource: your people.