I was recently sent an invite to a meeting from further up the chain of command. I declined the meeting and asked that it be rescheduled. I explained that I couldn’t be there because I was going to be meeting with one of my team. Meeting with each person my team, individually, has become the most important meeting I have each week.
The second part of the Manager Tools Holy Trinity is One-on-ones. Or, as they call them O3s. (Earlier, I posted about Manager Tools and the Feedback model. If you haven’t read that, I’d advise starting there, then coming back here). A one-on-one is a meeting between the manager and just one member of the team. It goes for half an hour and it happens every week.
It is said that the most important thing a manager can do is to hire well. If that’s the case, then surely the most important thing we can do from week to week is to make sure that the people we’ve hired continue to be the best people.
Think of it like this: A One on One is designed to make sure each member of your team maintain their effectiveness so that your team maintains its effectiveness — as your team’s effectiveness is the most common measurement of your effectiveness. It’s worth reading that again so you really understand it.
Here’s how one-on-ones work:
- First, you find out how the person is doing — wholistically. You get to know their non-work life as well as their work life. Know who their partner is, who their kids are, their pets, birthdays, when they go to the gym.
- Then you get to share with the person how they are doing. What you expect from them. You can give them feedback, share things with them that you’re hearing from above. (The single biggest complaint anyone has about the way their company ‘works’ is that there’s not enough communication ‘down’. One on Ones make it easy to fix your small corner of the world).
- Finally you both talk about the future, what’s on the horizon, what training they would like to be doing, what goals they have.
Each of these three parts should take about 10 minutes. If the first two go over time and you run out of time for the last one, let it go. Sticking to the promised 30 minutes is way more important and will win you way more credit (Meetings 101: Point 2). If there’s something they wanted to talk about in that last 10 minutes, they’re fairly certain to bring it up next week in their part of the conversation.
Easy right? You can hear The single most effective management tool over at the Manager Tools website. There’s also a worksheet you can use to take notes, and a template email to send to your team introducing them to the concept.
Do you give meet regularly, one-on-one, with your team? If so how has it gone for you?
When I was asked what was going on with my team member that took precedence over this meeting I explained that my team was the most important part of my job as a manager (My job title is about management, not about attending meetings). I explained that I had committed to these meetings with my guys and that, except in really unusual circumstances, I wanted to keep that commitment. After all, I’d asked them to think about what they wanted to talk about in the first 10 minutes. To break that commitment wouldn’t be showing them the respect they deserve.
