On the importance of having ‘1:1’ meetings and how to do them.

What For?

A 1:1 meeting is a place where the person you’re with is the subject of the meeting, not the project nor the tasks they’re working on, it’s about them. It’s about setting them up for success, listening to what matters to them, and building mutual trust at the same time.

This type of meeting is the most powerful tool you can have as a lead, they will feel someone care for them and feel safe, once they’re feeling this way they will be able to operate at their natural best and they will improve. You will build a strong team by supporting everyone individually.

Why good leaders make you feel safe | Simon Sinek

By running these meetings, you will start paying more attention to them, you will notice what goes right and wrong. This brings another benefit to this type of meeting, when the time comes for performance reviews, if you paid attention and shared meaningful feedback with them, what they do well and where they need to improve, then nothing (or almost) will be a surprise to them. They even would be already actively improving the areas where they need to, which makes the performance reviews much easier.

Content

The first time, it will feel awkward, but that’s normal, both of you have to get used to it and start to form a bond. After a couple of meetings, it will start feeling more natural. You will probably use someone else’s plan for the structure of this meeting, with time you will iterate it and make it your own.

There are several topics you can use during these meetings such as:

  • Career goals;
  • Frustrations/successes they experienced since the last meeting;
  • Exchanging feedback (bi-directional, from you to them, and from them to you);
  • Possible opportunities;
  • Sharing progress with their current goals and setting up plans to reach them.

The meetings will either be one of these 3 types: the Update, the Vent, and the Disaster. Time to share another resource with you.

The Update, The Vent, and The Disaster

The First 1:1

The first meeting is different:

  • Before the meeting, I explain what they can expect from this meeting, and I ask them to prepare their goals for 3 months and 1 year
  • During the meeting, I’ll ask questions that make sense to me to understand how they function/work and ask about their goals (this will be a focus during the next 1:1s and the goals should be re-evaluated when the time is appropriate)
  • A bunch of links to help you with setting up the first meeting

Questions for our first 1:1

You’ve got your first one-on-one meeting with an employee: How to prepare?

How to Have a Successful First One-on-One With An Employee

At the end of this meeting, I introduce them to the “3 good/bad points”. This will be a recurring theme for all 1:1 meetings that will follow.

The 3 good points/bad points question is something that the tech lead from a studio I worked at previously did, and I loved it. The idea behind this is to notice what they consider as good, ensure to make it happen more, and for the bad points, understand what they are, seek to resolve them, and make them happen less or resolve them.

It doesn’t have to always be 3 good points and 3 bad ones. Some weeks will be uneventful with a couple of good points, and that’s fine. I suggest that they take notes as things happen so they can remember them all when the time comes to discuss them.

The Next 1:1s

I run my 1:1s for 45mins every 2 weeks, I found that’s the right amount of time and the right frequency for me, it might be different for you, feel free to adapt.

For each person, I create a private Google Doc I share with them, where I take notes of everything we discuss during the meeting. The link for the document is bookmarked in our DM channel on Slack. It makes it easy to remember what was discussed previously, and the action items to do.

At the start of the meeting, I turn off Slack and tuck my phone away, for 45 mins my focus needs to be the person I am with.

Then the meeting goes as follows — this is the structure I use at the moment:

  1. How they feel
    • “What has been on your mind lately?”
      • If they have topics they wanna discuss, this IS the main priority, because this meeting is about them.
    • Discuss 3 good points/bad points since the last meeting
      • When it comes to the bad points, first I make sure I understand what they mean by rephrasing what I understood in my own words. Then I share stories from my experience related to their issue, it’s easier for people to relate to them rather than discuss theory.
    • Review action items
      • This is the moment to discuss what we agreed to do for this time during the last meeting, it can be something they had to do (eg — if I suggested they do something specific regarding an issue they have, I check back on them to see how it evolved) or that I had to do (eg — if I had to find a piece of information for them and I have to share it vocally)
  2. Feedback
    • Give detailed positive feedback and corrective feedback
      • Between two 1:1s, I will write what I notice in an Evernote document so I don’t have to make mental notes about what happened and forget things.
  3. Career development
    • Ask what they wanna improve on, decide together on a way to achieve that, and list the goals and/or action items
      • This is something I do every so and then, to review their progress for their 3 months/1 year goals, making sure we’re on track to reach them, and adjust/help if necessary.
  4. Conclusion
    • “Anything else you wanted to discuss?”
      • This is the same psychology when your appointment with your doctor is about to end, they have the hand on the doorknob, and you finally bring up this topic you were hesitant to share.
    • “Do you have any feedback for me?”
      • I always ask this question, because I always have to improve on something, and people will never always agree with my choices. When you start asking this question, you will always hear “Nope, all good”, that’s normal, it takes time to create the trust to enable them to share this information. But when they will be ready for it, they know they have a moment when they can share it. Feedback is a gift.
    • Confirm the time for the next 1:1
    • Summarize the 1:1 with the next action items (if any have been agreed upon)

Sometimes they might not come up with many points to discuss, and it feels like the meeting might run a bit short. It’s always good to have some questions ready for this kind of situation, but also that can be used to change things from time to time so it spices things up a bit. Here’s a list that can give you some ideas:

101 Questions to Ask in One on Ones

1:1 For New Hires

I wait around 2-3 months after a new hire joins before starting 1:1 with them. During that time, their focus is on getting comfortable with their new environment and new co-workers, and performing well with the tasks they are given. Once they reach that stage, they will start operating more on auto-pilot and have more mental bandwidth to think about their future.