5 Actions for Effective One-on-One Meetings With Team Members
Having effective one-on-one meetings with team members is one of the best tools – in my opinion – to drive:
- Better relationships with team members
- Improved engagement
- Improved performance
- A culture of giving feedback
- Individual and team development
Setting aside time to specifically develop team members, give feedback and build relationships sends an incredibly positive message to the entire team.
I share 5 actions (on the right) for effective one-on-one meetings with team members, so you get the most out of the time you invest in these meetings. They are broken down into what I have found works well for each of these 5 actions. Experiment and work out which of the suggestions works well for you.
Written by Jess Coles – 9 Minutes Read
This Article Covers:
- How to Use One-on-one meetings
- Book Weekly One-on-one meeting
- Preparation for one-one-one meetings
- How to conduct one-on-one meetings
- Following up after one-on-one meetings
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1. How to use one-on-one meetings with team members
For me, there are several vital reasons for holding one-on-one meetings with staff and five of these reasons are
- Building strong trusting relationships
- Providing two-way feedback
- Setting Direction for the individual or agreeing on direction with the individual
- Providing Coaching & Mentoring to improve individual skills and performance
- The opportunity for two-way Information sharing
There are plenty more benefits – these are my top 5.
Building strong trusting relationships is a must. If you don’t have trust and a positive relationship with your team member and vice versa, then everything else you do is not going to be nearly as effective.
Make The Time
You can’t build relationships unless you spend time with that person. And your interactions have to be give and take – it can’t be a one way street. I would suggest aiming to support and help your team member first before doing anything else and do this consistently. A one-on-one meeting with the employee is a great space to spend quality time.
Secondly You need feedback to improve. It is as simple as that. No-one gets everything right first time, and feedback gives you the opportunity to learn. You need feedback about how you manage and how best to help each individual – your team member needs to know what is going well and what needs improving. So give honest feedback and ask for honest feedback.
Thirdly, setting direction or agreeing direction for the week ahead, or for a given project, task or problem is extremely useful from a management perspective. Set direction for the more junior member or those that need more help and agree direction with you high performers and experienced team members.
Fourth, every one-on-one meeting is an opportunity to provide coaching support or an opportunity to share your experiences and learning with the team member so they can get to great in terms of what they do, more quickly and easily. The quicker they learn and improve, the better the overall team performance, resulting in your managers viewing your management and leadership skills very positively.
Finally – two-way information sharing is super useful in these one-to-one meetings. You want to know what is happening, what the problems and roadblocks are with what your team member is working on, and they probably need to know what is going on around them and above them that might impact their work. The better the communication and information sharing, the better everyone can do their roles well.
2. Book Weekly One-on-one meeting with all those that report into you
I would also suggest insisting that your direct reports also book in weekly one-to-one meetings with each of their reports. Then you will have set up a platform to build better relationships, provide feedback and coaching, etc. for each member in your team.
If you don’t want to invest in weekly meetings, then book in a one-to-one meeting with direct reports every other week.
Each of the one-on-one meetings should be held in private. You can book a meeting room or go anywhere that is relatively private. Hold these meetings in person wherever you can or failing that on a video call.
Another option that might appeal to some of you – is to do a walking meeting. Walking reduces tension, stimulates the brain with the activity and you are not facing each other, so makes discussing difficult subjects easier. Steve Jobs for instance did a lot of walking meetings for all these reasons.
Lastly, make sure that your one-on-one meetings are booked at the same time each week and make sure you are always on time for the meeting. Don’t be late, or keep rearranging the meeting or do anything else that might signal that the meeting is not important to you.
3. Preparation for the one-one-one meeting to be effective
Creating a joint agenda will make your one-on-one meeting more effective. The best thing about creating a specific agenda for each meeting is you both get a chance to do some thinking before the meeting. The thinking time before the one-on-one meeting means better use of time during the one-on-one meeting.
Ask for the key agenda items for the one-on-one meeting from your team member at least the day before. Share the items that you would like to talk about after you have received some input from them.
Don’t be tempted to impose your agenda onto the meeting. While quicker to do, it doesn’t promote a partnership or make the meeting as useful for the other person.
An alternative approach is having a standing agenda, with space for additional specific items that either of you want to bring to the meeting. It can be tough to keep up with creating a bespoke agenda for each one-on-one meeting.
Work out what best suits both of you for the meetings. Aim to speak less than your team member. This action ensures they have space and opportunity to speak about their key issues rather than responding to your issues.
4. How to conduct one-on-one meetings
There is a million and one ways to run one-on-one meetings and I suggest you play around with your approach to see what works best for both of you.
To get you started, here is an agenda that is a great place to start, and I will talk you through each item quickly. You can move the agenda items around to suit what you need for each meeting.
Start with checking in with the other person. Ask them how they are and what they have been up to? This section of the one-on-one meeting is about the personal side of building relationships, checking they are okay, happy, etc.
The check-in often feeds quite neatly into two-way information sharing. What have they achieved since the last meeting, thoughts, issues, challenges, insights, etc. Find out what is happening in their world.
In the middle of the Action
As a manager, you are sitting in the middle of all the activity of the team and are more likely to know what is going on outside the team too. Sharing relevant information to your team members role, work and projects is very useful for them and helps them do a better job.
I also like to chat about the top 2-5 things they are planning to achieve over the coming week.
Spending some time on Goal updates is useful in each one-on-one meeting. This keeps the focus on the individual’s goals, and you get regular updates on progress and the opportunity to input and help as needed. If they are starting to fall behind on reaching their goals, you can step in and help get them back on track earlier when it is easy and quicker to do so.
Don’t forget to praise good progress, good quality work and results delivered. Most managers praise too little in general so make the effort to praise where it is due.
Coaching the team member in solving their problems is another very useful part of any one-on-one meeting. The more your team members can problem solve and the more you trust them to solve problems, the better off you and team will be. You are also making better use of their talents – hopefully why you hired them in the first place.
And lastly, make any decisions appropriate in the meeting.
Consistently Give Feedback
Throughout the one-to-one meeting you should be providing feedback to the team member. I suggest that you favour a coaching style – asking questions to get the team member thinking – rather than telling them information. Adapt your style to the situation and team member in front of you.
You also need feedback to improve so ask your team member at the end of the one-to-one meeting or at any convenient point. Ask what you should continue, change, or stop. Ask how you can help support them better. Ask what management style works best for them. The more they trust you, the more you are likely to get useful feedback. Just listen to the feedback. Don’t challenge or disagree with the feedback during the meeting or you won’t get any more feedback.
Throughout the meeting, work hard to control any negative emotions. Keep yourself aware of your own reactions and your team members reactions when you are talking through each subject.
Keep the meeting focused on helping your team member do an even better jobs and building a strong trusting relationship with them.
And lastly, try to ensure that both of you leave the meeting with at least one action to do.
5. Follow-up for Effective one-on-one meetings with team members
You have had a great effective one on one meeting with the employee and you both leave the meeting energized and with the actions agreed.
You each rush off to the next meeting, get back to your desk to go through the next batch of emails, etc. Everyone is busy and it is very easy to forget about the actions agreed.
As manager, it is your job to follow-up on the actions agreed in the one-on-one meeting otherwise you risk signalling the actions are not that important to you. It is your job to set the example by doing your actions by the deadline agreed otherwise you are signalling that it is okay to miss deadlines or not do the actions.
A good practice to get into is emailing out the actions following the one-on-one meeting or add the actions to your project management software or share them in some written format. This provides a reference point for what actions were agreed.
Then follow up with the individual before the deadline for completing the actions. Ask them where things are and how you can help. Offering support turns the emphasis of the follow-up onto providing support rather than chasing.
Work out what type of follow-up works best for you. Make sure you follow-up until the actions are done.
In summary
Implement these 5 actions and as many of the tips included in this video as you can and you will have effective one-on-one meetings with team members that are useful and enjoyable for both parties.
As a reminder, the 5 actions are:
- How to Use One-on-one meetings
- Book Weekly One-on-one meeting
- Preparation for one-one-one meetings
- How to conduct one-on-one meetings
- Following up after one-on-one meetings
And the benefits you get by making your one-on-one meetings as effective as possible are:
- Better relationships with team members
- Improved engagement
- Improved performance
- A culture of giving feedback
- Individual and team development
All great reasons to work hard at improving how you use one-to-one meetings with team members.
The one-to-one meetings I had each week with team members were the most important meetings I had. The results the team consistently delivered paid back the time I invested many times over. Run effective one-on-one meetings and you will get a huge amount back in return.
