Welcome to Haacking Your Leadership. I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo. And Lorenzo on this episode, I want to talk about one on one meetings, ah my, one of my most favorite topics. It should be. I remember a few months ago having Jim Harder from Gallup on the podcast, and he said that one of the single biggest differentiators between you know, the predictability of an engaged team versus a disengaged team or even an individual employee, is the frequency
and quality of one on one meetings between the employee and the leader. And that stuck with me. It was it seems pretty obvious, but the fact that he says it was kind of the number one indicator that was a huge takeaway from me. In fact, at the end of the episode, he said that if he had any advice for leaders listening, it would be to really focus on that. If you're not doing that already, really focus on getting regularly scheduled one on one meetings with every person who report it's to you,
and work on the quality of those one on one meetings. And so, in spirit of that advice, I was looking on LinkedIn a few days ago when I came across kind of an infograph that was written by a guy named Justin It looks like Meecham or Mechham. He is a vice president for Adarama. They do kind of photo video equipment sales stuff out of Utah, and I've purchased things from that company in the past, you know, like
equipment. So it's interesting to see who wrote this. And he posted this infograph that talks about the quality of one on one meetings between managers and employees and really how to how to lean into making sure they are high quality and
what they're for. I think a lot of leaders struggle with this in terms of making sure like they understand the value of having them, They understand that they need to be quality, you know, high quality, but I think a lot of them kind of wing it and it can lead to you know, poor results or for it, you know, being away of time. Have you have you seen leaders who who've done this and done it kind of
poorly, but they had the best of intentions. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things, like all things, where you kind of have to
have some skill in this. You've got to have some practice in this, you have to have intent, you have to consider and think about like what are the outcomes that you want out of the conversation, And in in in industries like retail, right, a lot of times the outcome you want in the conversation is like for the for the employee to do something differently or to improve on a behavior or a skill set, and so many times that becomes
the focus of the conversation versus thinking about kind of the bigger picture in a one to one meeting, to making sure that you're connecting with uh, with with with a team member, you're having open dialogue, you're listening to understand, you're you know, you have to have some patience and some genuine curiosity. But I think that for me is what I see is that you to your point, you have leaders that have the best of intent, but they've
not had the time to kind of build skill here. And because there's an authority element of a one to one like this, it's rare that an employee will give the feedback or coach their leader on what they need out of the
conversation. So they kind of just take what they're given and then they walk away and maybe they're not you know, pushing back, they're not asking questions or kind of like, well, I guess this is what this is about, as opposed to the leader really setting the standard and creating a space to have dialogue around what's necessary for that employee to have the best potential outcome of the meeting that will then influence you know, them doing amazing work, right.
I think that's spot on. I also think there's a the idea of the frequency of these is really important. And you know, in this infograph, Justin says that it should be you know, weekly thirty minute slots, and if that works for your team, that's great. You know, in some cases it's not as frequent as thirty minutes, depending on how many people
you have reporting to you or how often you interact with them. In an office environment where everybody's there Monday through Friday nine to five, it probably does work to have weekly thirty minute slots. In a retail environment, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's not as often as that, but whatever it is, there should be an interval that the employee and you can rely on and they
can be rescheduled, but they should never be canceled. If it's just you know, something something comes up, that's fine, but that needs to be an in person conversation or over the phone conversation that just says, hey, I'm really sorry I have to reschedule, but here's the actual time it's going to be, not I'm going to reschedule, and I'll let you know because I'm going to reschedule the same thing as canceling, right, Rescheduling means here's
the new day and time, and then kind of holding yourself to it because again, things do come up, but it shouldn't be every time that something comes up, Otherwise it becomes that the meeting is no longer important. So
having a regular interval is important to do. And the reason I think it's important to have a regular interval is that if the meetings that you have with them are are based on the performance only, so they've done something that needs coaching or feedback or something like that that doesn't always happen on a on a
consistent interval, that happens whenever it happens. And if you have these things scheduled all the time that can be relied on, there becomes this cadence and rhythm and and kind of symbiosis that occurs between you and the employee over time,
as you get into a rhythm with each other. And then when you put when you pull in things like something to work on, it's much more easily absorbed because it's not viewed as, oh, every time I'm every time I'm scheduled for a meeting, it's going to be to go over something I've
done wrong. If the employee gets that impression, then you're not having them often enough because they're only doing something wrong and every once in a while and and the rest of this time should be around things they can do to help themselves get better and open doors for them. Yeah, and I think too, like and I kind of like like that this list he has your kind
of flows its way through there. But like having an agenda and having intention as the leader, is your responsibility, right, This is about their time, This is about their development. This is about you know, making sure that that they've got some thoughts that they want to have kind of prepared for this conversation. But you do have a responsibility to make sure that you're prepared to acknowledge achievements and consider different things that are going on from a coaching standpoint,
support standpoint where they're at in skill growth. But preparation here is imperative because if you're not prepared, if it feels like you're just sitting down with me and you're flustered and don't know what's going on, or like let me see what like, it doesn't feel like you have the intention to really want
to have an impact. I also think that like having a quiet, private space, right, it is tough sometimes to have real open dialogue where it can organically lead to where you're solving things together if you're constantly being interrupted. And as a leader, of course, like look, you got to pay attention. Right. We live in a technology world. It's really easy to have your phone, have your computer, have your alerts going off, things like that. Yes, there's always going to be things that happen. Yes
there will be things that Sometimes I've had to do it. It feels horrible to have to walk away for a minute because something popped up. But it's one of the main reasons why when I have development conversations, it's always with pen and paper. Even if I have my phone in my pocket, i have a watch on my wrist, I can tell me what's going on. When I'm talking to somebody about their development, it is pen and paper. Typically in one of my notebooks because that really allows me to focus and then
take notes. And it's helpful because it gives me something to follow up on later on the next time we sit down, I can look back at the notes and refresh myself from what we talked about going into the next meeting.
Yeah, that's so truth. I carry around a little a little stenopad in my back pocket that I can use for this for one on ones, because you know, there was a long time ago I wanted to not have technology with me, and in giving pressure, I was listening and I thought that if I start taking notes, it gives the impression that I'm not listening, that I'm that I'm you know, that I can't be relied on to remember
this. So it's it was almost like when you go to a restaurant and the server comes over and they're trying to show they can remember everybody's order, and so they just in the entire time, I'm just thinking, mine's gonna get messed up. Just just get just get paper out and write it down. It doesn't bother me that you need to write it down. I'd rather have it be good, you know, than have you show that you can
remember it. This is the exact same thing. I don't think employees look at you writing notes and think to themselves, why can't they just remember this? They think this person cares enough about this to write it down so that they can go back to it. Especially if if you have a lot of a lot of employees reporting to you, you need to take notes and you need to be able to reference it back again because the next one of these meetings might be one or two or four weeks, you know, down the
road, and you need to be able to fall up on it. And I made this mistake once of not having those notes, and then I forgot some of the things that were really important that I said I would follow up on because there was a lot that happened in that meeting, and and because I dropped the ball on that, I felt really bad and I wanted to make sure that never happened going forward. But I definitely agree with about about
no technology. And that doesn't mean taking your phone out of your pocket and putting upside down on the table in front of you, because I think a lot of people do that to show like, oh it's up, it's upside down. I'm not going to be looking at it in your pocket. If it's on the table and it goes off, it's the on the table that's distracting too, So keep it in your pocket and just don't look at it.
You know, it's it's a short meeting, and and give the person the time that they deserve at being kind of with there with them in the moment, and then you can always check your phone, you know, later when the when the meeting is done. One of the things that he says in this in this list that I really love is when he says, when you're giving actionable feedback, you always and he always, in all caps,
always give examples. Uh. The one of the worst one on ones that I ever had in terms of given to me was when someone was giving me feedback and they couldn't give us single example of anything they were giving me feedback on. And it felt terrible at first, and then it went from me feeling terrible about it to me feeling like this person has no idea what they're
talking about. Because one of the pieces of feedback they gave me, I felt that it was right, and then another piece of feedback they gave me, I felt this is not right. Like I'm genuinely curious now why this is the impression because I disagree with I don't have any part of me that agrees with this at all. And then they couldn't give examples, and I was like, well, then what's the point, Like, what are you telling me to actually fix if you can't give an example of when you actually
saw this? And it was because that they they weren't in a position to notice or have examples. They had to get them from other people, and they didn't. They didn't do that work in advance. So you always have to give examples of any type of feedback. Otherwise it's you know, it's just kind of a it's telling them how to change something based on how you
feel and not based on what they actually did. That was incorrect, That is, that's never good because feed that should never be based on what they're doing for you. They should be based on what they're doing for themselves,
and that involves actual behaviors. Yeah, I like you said that because I think that being specific is so important here, Like you're gonna have data points that are gonna kind of lead you down a path around maybe somebody's work performance, but if you really want to have an impact on changing the behavior that will then change the data. You have to, as you said, kind
of be in a position to notice. You have to use examples of things that you have personally observed, conversations that you've had, follow up that you've done. Because I think if you're, if you're again, if you're if you're stepping into this with the intention of helping them to get better, then having those specific examples is absolutely critical. And then I think when it comes to like setting goals, that's another thing that he's got in here that I
really like is is including them in the goal setting. And here's what that might look like. There's many times that that organizations will define goals for you. They're going to tell you what the goal is, and so like you can say like, okay, well here's the goal. We know this is the goal. You're not at the goal, let's keep it going. We need to get better than this goal, versus saying, hey, Chris,
you know you and I know what the goal is for the organization. Really, so what I love to to take a look at is here's the current results that you've got right now. How do you feel about these and do you feel that these represent your best work? Right right, Okay, Like, can we agree that you know that that you could do better here? Cool? I can agree with that. Now let's talk about this. What would you need? What are the things that you would need to help you
achieve this goal? What do you what are the hurdles that you have right now? Do you have anything that you think and then if you have some great I can listen to them, I can align, we can talk about it or rewind back a couple of things. I can say, Okay, well, I've got a couple of specific examples of things that I've observed that I think could be changed or adjusted that would help you achieve this goal. So again, you know, it's it's more than just here's the number.
Can we agree that's the goal? Now? Go get it? And it's more around connecting, like does that feel right? Does does that feel you know? Does the employee look at that and say, I'm proud of what I've accomplished or not. Maybe they're new to the role, maybe they're new to a skill. Maybe that they've seen some vast improvement over the last time you talk to them, but they're still not there yet. That still needs to be recognized to a degree when they when you see the behaviors are happening,
and that's really important to do that. And I think that including them in the goals is absolutely correct. And then I love the next point around asking them how you can be a better manager, And that's that's so much more than like do you need anything else from me? How can I support you? Right? You know how it can be done very wrong in many instances, many instances, right, really yeah, but if it's done right,
it's a good thing. Yes, And this is one of the things where I will always give leaders the pass on the first one, which is like, hey, what are some things that I can do differently to support you in a way that can help you achieve these goals. And then it's kind of like, no, keep it the same, like let's keep our touchpass. I just need the I need the feedback, keep it real with
me, be transparent, like you know all that stuff. Okay, so unlikely you're gonna get real specific feedback from a person on what you can do differently. So that's exactly what I do. Then I hear that and I say, okay, great. So then the next time we sit down, here's what I need from you. I need two specific things. I'm going to come with some specific things that I've observed. I need two specific things from you about things that I can do differently, whether that's with you directly,
whether that's with the larger team, whether that's with peers. What are things that I can address that will be helpful in helping you achieve the goals that you want to achieve. I need two of those next time. And sometimes it's like you need to go that with that level of clarity to make
sure they're coming with those things. And again, it doesn't have to be necessarily between me and the person, but it could be my influence as the leader of people of things that need to be addressed collectively as a team. Right, And I like to add something to that too, because I agree with you, But I would also say that I like to add to it. This the idea of you know, the old for meeting feedback. There's the start, stop, and continue, like tell me something I should start
doing I am not doing. Now, tell me something that I should stop doing that I'm currently doing, and tell me something that I should continue doing. Because because it worked well when it comes to asking people to bring feedback,
it doesn't necessarily need to be something that I need to change. It could be something that they found very valuable and they want me to continue doing, or it could be something that I'm not doing they want me to do, or something that I am doing they don't they want me to stop doing. And so it kind of opens some doors of what that means because the
idea is having a feedback loop. That is two way. The idea is about making them comfortable with giving you feedback and showing that you will address that feedback with your own changes and actions, because it's less about the feed that you know what it is that you should change, and more about showing this employee that it's not just about them changing things because you said to change it.
It's that you see this as a relationship of reciprocity and that if they have feedback for you, they can rely on that it will be actionable and that you can you can make those changes for them because that's what like lifts the relationship and allows for people to do, you know, better and high higher quality work. I want to go back to the goal setting thing just
for one last thing. The the the importance of setting goals is there, but I think even if an employee can't say that they will meet whatever the
target of the organization is or the goal that's been set for them. I do think it's important, especially for a new employee or for one who's who's particularly struggling with with getting there and the idea that that that steps towards the goal are still something to be celebrated that I think it's okay to allow an employee to set a goal for themselves that is shy of the target, because the idea is that you want them to tell you what they can do,
not to tell them this is what the expectation is and you're going to do this. At some point that might become necessary. But when when it comes to, you know, changing a behavior in these first you know, one or two or three meetings with a person having having them set a goal for themselves that may not be exactly where they need to be, where the where the end goal is, but something that's along the way. It puts the the ownership back on them and it's like, well, this isn't a goal
that has been set for you. This is a goal that you set for yourself and that you told me was the goal. I think that goes a long way to making an employee feel like they have some ownership over this, this whole thing, and and and getting to a place where where the next meeting with them can be like, I'm not even looking at the goal from
the organization. This is what you told me. Tell me what it is that you did in order to get there, and and and how you were either were able to accomplish it or were not able to accomplish it absolutely And with that it brings us to this episodes one Minute Hack. But first a few worse from our sponsors. All right, for this episode one Minute Hackers,
I want you to do. We're going to post this infograph in the podcast description by justin read through it because if you're already doing one on ones with your team at all, like any interval, I want you to read through this in order to kind of reboot this process in a way that is you know, more productive. Reach out to your individual people and you know, send them a note in advance and say you would like to kind of talk about the meetings that you have with them in general and how they can
be better or more productive. Ask them to bring things to the table that would help them feel like the meetings were more productive, so that you know for a fact that they get a lot out of this time, and that you get a lot out of this out of this time. If you don't have these going already, that's a problem and you need to but start with a meeting with them about these one on ones. Tell them this is going
to be something you want to do on a regular interval. If it's something if it's an interval they can be involved in in terms of choosing an interval, then let them be involved in that and kind of get their feedback on how they want these to go. That doesn't take a note in advance, that's just kind of using the first one to kind of work through it.
But again, if you have already some idea of these things happening in your organization, then send them a note in advance, ask them to bring feedback to the table and kind of reboot this process in a way that lets them feel like going forward, they're gonna get a lot out of this, because otherwise, if they if they leave these one on ones feeling if it was a waste of time, then it will be a waste of time. They need to look forward to these as something that is energizing and that they can
use as a way to give you feedback and vice versa. Yeah, and I would say too, I think you know, many times this is just a part of the process with any leader of people that you're doing constantly and you're already doing for the most part, So like, I think it's always good though, to kind of check yourself and kind of just do a little
bit of a reset. So even if it's like, hey, I'm doing most of this or a lot of this makes a lot of sense, or I feel really good about it, like take the opportunity to do in the
next one. Even if it's if it's going well, then just say like, hey, is there anything more, Like you know, like I've been thinking about our time together and I think that it's it's very, very valuable, But like, is there anything additional that we can adjust to this or that we can do differently that you think would be helpful in us moving faster? Like even something like that may give you something that you hadn't even considered
that would be so helpful. Yeah, I completely agree with that. And you'll notice when you look at the infograph there's a second half of this infograph and it's the quick guide for one on ones for from the employee standpoint, because you know, if you're a leader of people, you know this podcast
is about leadership, so we focused on that part of it. But you probably have a boss also, and so if you want to look at the other side of this infograph to be able to, you know, think about how you can make one on ones more productive between you and your boss. There's some helpful information in that as well. Absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end of this episode. This is Hack Your Leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.