There is a direct relationship between how freely an individual can speak to his or her boss and the productivity and the creativity of the employee. The more freely employees can speak and express their ideas and opinions, the more relaxed and confident they are about their work, and the better work they do.
The only way to develop this friendly feeling between the boss and staff members is to have regular conversations that go back and forth in a relaxed and supportive environment. The one-on-one meeting is one of the very best ways for managers to create this type of high-performance environment with and among their staff members. There is nothing like it.
Cameron Herold, author of Double Double, calls this a “goal setting and review meeting.” This is a good description. When you meet with each of your team members on a weekly basis, you get an opportunity to discuss his/her goals and activities and be updated on the work that the person is doing, and how well everything is going.
This information sharing is then also a teaching and learning opportunity, which enables you to give both guidance and mentoring to your team members to help them perform at their best.
Andrew Grove of Intel wrote that the one-on-one meeting was one of the most important responsibilities of managerial life. His opinion was that a manager should hold these one-hour meetings once a week with each direct report. He also felt that no manager should have more than twelve to fifteen people reporting to him, or all his time would be taken up in these meetings.
Like other effective meetings, the one-on-one meeting has a written agenda that both parties follow. This agenda is prepared by the team member with a list of discussion items, concerns, or problems that have come up in the team member’s area of responsibility. This agenda also includes the goals or activities that the team member is working on, as well as a progress report.
The best way to manage this type of meeting is for you to ask good questions and listen intently to the answers. A common weakness of managers is that they often have an irresistible urge to contribute their knowledge and wisdom the very first moment the employee may be in need of it. You should resist this temptation. Ask questions instead, starting with, “How is everything going?”
There is a rule that “the person who asks questions has control.” When you ask open-ended questions beginning with words such as how, when, who, and which, none of which can be answered with a simple yes or no, you give the employee an opportunity to open up and expand in that area.
One of the most powerful questions you can ask when your employee presents you with a problem or a dilemma is, “What do you think you should do?”
When you give advice to people and tell them what you think they should do, you are actually making them dependent on you. You are setting them up to feel uncomfortable and insecure if they act without seeking your advice again.
Instead, continue to ask, “What do you think?” It is quite amazing how many of your staff members have already made a decision about what to do, but they are not 100 percent sure. When they tell you what they think needs to be done, you can tell them that you think it is an excellent idea. If necessary, you can then suggest something else that the employee might do as well.
The best length for a one-on-one meeting is between sixty and ninety minutes. Schedule the meeting well in advance, even from week to week, on a particular day and at a particular time. At this time, turn off your phone and have your calls held. Put your computer on silent so that there are no electronic interruptions during the conversation.
It is helpful if you sit at a table, corner to corner, rather than directly across a desk, which always is felt as an invisible barrier between two people. Something as simple as offering the employee a cup of coffee or a glass of water before you get started can have an amazingly positive effect on the tone of the meeting.
As Andrew Grove said, meeting one-on-one, face-to-face, knee-to-knee, and preferably weekly with each of the people reporting to you is one of your most important responsibilities as a manager.
One of the most powerful influences in my life was when I worked for the Big Boss of a conglomerate. I always worked late and was often the only employee of the 200 people in the head office who was still working at 6:00 p.m. As it happened, the Big Boss would often be at his desk as well.
One evening, he phoned me in my office, having seen that my light was still on, and invited me to come down to his office for a chat, which I did. This invitation led to the development of a warm relationship that had me staying late after work almost every night, with the boss regularly inviting me down to his office for a thirty- to sixty-minute discussion four or five days a week. Those evening meetings were the most wonderful mentoring experiences of my young business life. His taking the time to talk to me and share his ideas with me made me a better person for the rest of my career.
You can have this same effect on each person who reports to you. Resolve today to schedule a personal meeting with each of your direct reports. In fact, move it up on your list of priorities to make it one of the most important things you do as a manager, and as a person.