Building Trust & Engagement: The Essential One on One

The Art of One on One

1-on-1s are an employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the free-form meeting for the pressing issues, brilliant ideas and chronic frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email and other less personal and intimate mechanisms. Employees may and could set the agenda and send it to the manager in advance. Or it could be an open dialogue with helpful guiding questions from the manager to bring a more constructive conversation .

An easy way to set the agenda is by utilizing this format on a weekly or Bi-weekly basis.

1. Gut check

   1. How’s it going? 10 = Couldn’t be better. 1 = I’m going to quit. Why?

2. Issues/Problems/Open Items

3. Notables (free-form with context)

As a manager, it’s important to remember these tips:

• This is your direct report’s time. Not the supervisor’s time.

• The supervisor should discover

• This is an open forum, a time for venting (if needed).

• 1-on-1s are not as much about key metrics, but are an open dialogue.

• The manager needs to push the employee for the agenda.

• During the 1-on-1, the employee will highlight the most important points. It’s the manager’s job to draw out issues from the employee.

• The 1-on-1s should be short, focused and happen on a regular basis. Typically 30 minutes long and every-other-week.