Leadership | Engagement | Motivation | Productivity

One-to-One Meetings: Your Most Effective Leadership Tool

What one-to-ones are and how to implement them

Talking to your team regularly is the most productive way to develop a high performing, effective, and engaged team.

Who am I to make such a bold statement?

I am a Learning & Development/Organisational Development professional, I have led many teams myself, and I have managed the implementation of leadership programs.

On a personal note, I have been in the workforce for nearly forty years, and I have had some excellent leaders and some truly horrible ones.

The best leaders were the ones who met with me every week and genuinely cared about me as a person. It felt good to report to a leader like that.

“High-performance managers are involved in their employees’ work lives. They don’t subscribe to a laissez faire approach to management, and they don’t ignore their employees.” — Gallup

According to Gallup, when employees strongly agree that their managers know what projects they are working on, they are seven times more likely to be engaged, rather than disengaged.

In my years spent managing teams, I have always held regular one-to-ones with each team member. In every case I have been able to connect more deeply on a personal level with the team member, as well as coach, advise, guide and develop them.

In this article, you will find out:

1. What one-to-one meetings are
2. What to discuss in a one-to-one meeting
3. Why one-to-ones are effective
4. How to set up one-to-one meetings with your team
5. Bonus tips from my personal experience doing one-to-ones

TLDR:

Click here for a free One-to-One Toolkit including a One-to-One template to get you started.

1. What one-to-one meetings are

One-to-one meetings are regular, private meetings with your team members to discuss productivity, goals, development, issues, and personal concerns.

Private

A one-to-one meeting must be private.

If your team member needs to talk about health issues, problems with the team, or a personal matter, such as an impending divorce, they know there is a scheduled time to do so.

The embarrassment of having to ask for a meeting with the boss is avoided. If one-to-ones are routine, no-one notices and ad-hoc meetings either.

Talking to your team member by their desk in an open-plan office is not a one-to-one meeting.

Regular

One-to-ones need to be regular. Ideally for half an hour every week or fortnight. If your team gets into the routine of having one-to-one meetings they will save up their non-urgent questions for the meeting.

If meetings are irregular they lose their value, and you will lose the trust of the team. If a meeting is canceled, make sure you re-book as close to the original meeting time as possible.

2. What to discuss in a one-to-one meeting

Start the meeting by asking how your team member is feeling about work and if there is anything they need to discuss. This is an opportunity for them to bring up any personal or work issues that may be causing stress or disquiet.

Starting with an inquiry about their well-being shows that you care about your team member as a person.

Ask about how goals and projects are going. Talk about progress and whether your team is meeting deadlines. If not, discuss what actions to take.

Are there any roadblocks or missing resources that are preventing goals from being accomplished? If there are things that only you can do, make sure you take action.

If there is any training or development needed for your team, the one-to-one is the place to discuss it. In the meeting, you can talk about progress with their training, or any other development your team member needs.

You can use the one-to-one for coaching your team members, where needed.

Once you have discussed any work matters, ask the employee again about how they are. Ask for a rating out of 10 for their engagement and satisfaction with work. If it is low, you can ask if there is anything you can do to improve it.

At the end of the meeting, ask your team member about workload and well-being again. Some people find it hard to talk to their boss about personal or difficult topics. By the end of the meeting, they may warm up and feel more comfortable.

3. Why one-to-ones are effective

Regular one-to-one meetings between a leader and their team member promote trust. Most people want to be able to access their boss regularly for a variety of reasons. If you are available, you will prove to your team that you are there for them.

Asking about the well-being of your team demonstrates that you care about your team member as a person. No-one likes to think that in the eyes of their manager, they are just a work-horse

If you spend time in the meetings talking about development, training opportunities, and ways your team member can improve, they will feel you are invested in their development and future.

When you take the time in one-to-ones to coach your team, they will be grateful for your time. Not all leaders take the time to help their team succeed, some leaders are even threatened by team members with potential.

Developing your team, training & coaching them, and monitoring your team’s progress will improve the effectiveness of your team.

By discussing work projects regularly, you can be more transparent about company goals and communicate more effectively. Your team members can ask questions and ask for clarification.

When you are discussing work goals regularly, you are well-placed to notice anything that is going off course. You can quickly intervene to make sure your team member gets back on track.

You can quickly spot any anomalies in behavior and find out the cause. Whether your team member is undergoing stress at home, being bullied, or abusing alcohol, you will be able to act quickly to support them.

You can quickly deal with any team issues. You can deal with any problems quickly.

If you have your eye on the progress of team goals, you will be able to make sure the team as a whole is performing. Those who have some spare capacity can assist others who are time-poor.

Actions from prior one-to-ones, and performance appraisals, can be tracked.

When your boss asks for an unscheduled update, you can instantly report on the activities of your team.

4. How to set up one-to-ones in your team

If your organization does not currently carry out one-to-ones, your team members may not know what they are. Take some time to explain what a one-to-one meeting is.

One-to-one meetings are regular, private meetings with your team members to discuss productivity, goals, development, issues, and personal concerns

Make sure that you explain to the team that one-to-ones are an informal, two-way chat about work and how your team is feeling.

Once everyone knows what a one-to-one meeting is, set up regular meetings in your work calendar.

The best way to get your team to prepare is to design a simple form and ask the team to complete it in advance.

The headings for the form could be:

• Tasks completed over the last week
• Tasks planned for next week
• Roadblocks (what might prevent projects moving forward)
• Resources required
• Discussion about development or training

Note that the form will only have the work-related topics, it is up to you to ask how your direct reports are doing at the beginning and end of the meeting.

You may find that for the first meeting, your team member has not prepared. To circumvent this you could send out a reminder before the first meeting, asking your team to complete the form you have provided. It can take a while for people to get used to the process.

5. Bonus tips from my personal experience of doing one-to-ones

As you may have gathered, I’m a huge fan of one-to-ones.

Here are some of my tips arising from doing one-to-ones with my teams:

Explain to the team what you are doing and why, before you begin. Team members have told me that they loved the one-to-ones, but they were initially confused because they did not understand the point of them.

Take care to prepare a one-to-one form that works for your team and suits your style. Put it somewhere accessible on the work computer, or you will have people not preparing because they couldn’t find the form.

Always re-book canceled one-to-ones. The team grows to rely on them.

Insist that your team reply to calendar invites and if they cannot make a one-to-one, they must let you know.

Make a note of the actions that your direct report has agreed to do. Note your actions too.

Diarize actions that you have agreed to do from the one-to-one.

Diarize actions that your direct reports have agreed to so that you can check on progress.

Whenever I sent an email asking a team member to do something, I filed it in an archive file under their name. Before the one-to-one, I looked in their file and listed all the things I’d asked them to do, ready to discuss in the one-to-one. This way, nothing gets forgotten.

Always book a meeting room for your one-to-ones. If someone is in your meeting room and you can’t ask them to leave, go to a coffee shop.

One-to-ones work on Zoom. You can easily share the one-to-one form.

If you have direct reports who are leaders themselves, check that they are doing their one-to-ones with their team. I had a section in the one-to-one form where the managers gave a summary of their team’s activities.

Some of your team will be happy with a half an hour meeting, some may take longer. People have different needs for social contact and you must adjust to suit your team. Always allow ample time, so your team does not feel rushed.

Have a section at the end of the one-to-one form with development goals and goals from the performance appraisal system. Have your direct report copy and paste the goals onto the form and check on progress regularly.

Final Thoughts

I have always found that one-to-one meetings are effective in gaining the trust of my team and getting to know them on a personal level.

Having regular meetings with agreed, actionable, time-based steps for each week means work gets done on-time unless there is a roadblock or missing resources. In which case, you know about it immediately and can take action quickly.

One-to-one meetings do take up time, but in my experience, the benefits far outweigh the costs.

People leave managers, not organizations and one-to-one meetings are a great way to ensure your team are engaged and turnover is low.

Click here for a free One-to-One Toolkit including a One-to-One template to get you started.