How I Work is having a little break over the festive season, so I've picked a handful of my absolute favorite episodes from the last eighteen months to play for you in this best of series. I hope you enjoy, and I'll be back with new episodes twice weekly from January twenty eight. What if the simple chat by the water cooler could be the key to unlocking your team's full potential. What if those regular catch ups you grudgingly schedule with your direct reports were actually gold mines waiting
to be explored. For some of us, one on one meetings are just another box to tick in the endless checklist of managerial duties. But what if I told you that revolutionizing that one hour could change everything. In today's episode of How I Work, we're diving deep with Professor Steven Rogelberg, a global expert, on how to have better mind and how we can turn routine check ins into opportunities for real growth, connection, and insightful leadership. Stephen's not
just an academic wizard waxing lyrical about hypotheticals. Oh No, He's in the trenches with us, applying these insights into his own work every single day. So let's transform your workplace interactions and discover just how powerful a simple conversation can be. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and founder of behavior change consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show about how to help you get so much more out of the hours
in your day. Now onto my chat with Stephen, which starts with me asking him if there was a specific experience he had that got him thinking differently about one on one meetings.
I think it was more of a general experience and having a one on one meeting with someone that reports into me and just seeing how she experienced it, you know, like she left their feeling so motivated, so connected, and so engaged. And the fact that those emotions happened for her just through me dedicating this twenty five minutes of time was amazing. Right to be able to give that gift to someone to feel seen, and so that was like a critical incident that just stuck with me that
this is an incredible opportunity. And that's why I was so excited to write the book because it helped shine a light on how to do it aligned with science so that people would get the types of outcomes that they're hoping for.
I think it's great because I feel like a lot of people see one on ones as a necessary evil that typically clogs up their diary on Mondays. I feel like Monday seems to be a very popular day for one on ones. How do you know if something warrants a one on one meeting in the first place.
You shouldn't even have to make that decision. A one on one meeting cadence should happen no matter what. One on ones are meetings for the direct, not for the manager, So whether the manager wants it or not is irrelevant. Right, You're doing it for the direct So your job is to help them realize all the things that could be talked about in the one on one and then tee them up to decide on the types of issues and topics. You know, where they need support, where are they confronting obstacles.
What you are doing as a leader is you're providing a structure. You're saying, listen, I'm all in for you, right, I want you to thrive, and I'm committed to doing my part. And one piece of my part is you knowing that every week or every other week we are going to have this dedicated time for you. It's not about me checking up on all your tasks and monitoring your work. It's about you sharing what you need to share, bringing up challenges that you have, talking big picture, small picture,
long term, short term. So it's not a negotiable. It's not something that I do only if I have time. It's something I'm committed because I'm committed to employee thriving.
It's such a mindset shift, is it is? Because I feel like often it feels like a two way straight as opposed to it's all about the employee as opposed to know about the manager's needs.
So yeah, I mean, it is a gift you're giving the employee, but it's a gift you're benefiting from, right because these tools, this approach helps your employees to thrive. Right. And we know that managers are evaluated based on the success of the directs. So as your direct strive as they are more aligned team performance excel excels and this is all a good reflection on you as a manager.
So it's an activity where the immediate benefit goes to the direct But it's a mistake to think that the manager is not directly benefiting from it.
That's so true. I mean, there is the old adage that you join an organization, but you leave a manager.
Sorry, exactly exactly, And this is an activity where this is your opportunity, this is your stage as a leader. A one on one conversation is where your values truly come to life. And so we can espouse certain values, but we do what one on one we're living those values.
Sorry, as in your own life you work within in a university, how often do you meet with your teammates?
So you know, one of the things that was different about this book from my previous one. So the previous one was a surprising science and meetings, and we had a ton of science to talk about this one. The title of the book is the Art and Science of one on one meetings, because they're truly an art to it. And so this book lays out a variety of choices, but ultimately the leader has to make choices based on who they are, the relationship with their people, the type
of work they do. So how I meet with my people is going to be different than other people's work. You know, in my line of work, we don't work as a team, right, academics. Research generally tends to be more individual, project based work that doesn't necessarily interconnect with others. So for our type of work, having one on ones every other week works completely fine, and it can be extremely short, but they just become more predictable check ins.
You know, where the doctoral student or the employee, whichever one, they know that they have this time. You know, if you look at the research and more traditional occupations, generally the weekly cadence or the other week every other week cadence yielded the most benefits in terms of employee engagement, right, because when you have more frequent ones, you're able to make the connections. You're able to say, okay, we talked about this last how's that going. You build momentum, there's
so many positive things that happen from it. So in general, I recommend managers to do it weekly, but depending on the type of work and role, it could be every other week like myself. And interestingly, the more senior employees they actually desired more one on ones than the junior employees. But what I would suggest is because senior employees they know how important these are, they know that these things
can be transformative to careers. Thus they know the value of having this dedicated time with their manager.
So I want to now talk through a typical process for a one on one. So I want to start with preparation, and I'm curious for you, as the manager, what preparation goes into your one on one meetings.
So it starts with always reviewing your notes, right, because so much of the value of these conversations is when there are threads. So the one on ones allow you to start creating this diary in sense for each employee. It also starts with mindset. I'm personally very moved by research on the Pygmalion effect, and this initially came from education, where they found that the teachers attitudes about their students
really shaped how they behave towards those students. So if a teacher thought that the students were lazy, they behaved in ways that basically made them lazy. The same thing happens in one on ones. If you go into your one on one thinking that this employee is unchangeable, unmotivated, you're actually not going to be a real active listener.
You're not going to be providing support. We also need to make sure we check our mindset around the job we have in the one on one the job, we have to facilitate, to ask good questions, to learn right, to get that other party to be willing to share and express. Now, we need to make sure that we're facilitating, we're engaging, we're learning, we're asking why tell me more? And even that is hard because often it's the case that when we ask someone, well, how would you handle it?
When they give an answer, we are quick to replace it with our own answer, and that's thing that's not helpful. Right, So what we want to do is when we hear the employee solution, if there's not a big and meaningful gap between their ideas and ours, we let it go right because that conveys respect and trust, and then the employee will be more motivated to act. Now, if the gap is big and it is meaningful, sure intervene, but otherwise pick your battles carefully. Then the closing phase, Boy,
that is one of the most critical pieces. So the close is really about recapping what everyone committed to, getting clarity around that, and then ideally trying to end a more positive note. Right, Even if difficult issues were talked about, we can try to create some motivational self efficacy building types of statements that leave people kind of in a better place.
I want to delve into a few of those things that you've just covered back on preparation. What do you suggest to your direct reports to get the most out of the one on ones. Is there a preparation rituals or things that you recommend to them.
I love that. I definitely spend time on that in the book because I think that while the manager clearly has the largest role, it takes two to tango, and the direct has a responsibility. So I lay out what we found in the research or some of the key behaviors that directs can do. Let me share a couple. So one of them is really reflecting on what you need, because you can't get what you need unless you know
what you need. So the direct really has to think, stop and think, and they have to decide that this meeting will be successful if I have this, this, and this cupboard that takes work. And most directs don't do that and they have to. So that's a critical success factor that's on them. Then obviously being engaged, interacting, expressing gratitude,
not getting defensive. All those behaviors they might actually have to be more active and rapport building because some managers are not adept at it, so maybe they have to kick that up to build that connection. They have to be willing to disclose, right, because again, you can't get
what you want unless you disclose what you want. And then the final thing I'll just share is you have to be willing to ask for help, but how you ask for help matters, and that the research generally shows that there's two basic approaches to help seeking, ones called autonomous help seeking. The other one's dependent help seeking. Dependent help seeking is really where you're just looking someone to
save you, right to solve the problem. Autonomous help seeking is really about you gathering what you need to solve your challenge. And then obviously the old piece that we just don't want to forget is they need to follow through on commitments that they make.
I'm wondering when you say, have a new doctoral student that you're supervising and you're setting up the cadence of one on one meetings, do you almost have like an induction to the one on one so that you're aligned in your expectations? What does that look like in your life?
So, for example, when we're creating our plan of action and it does need, it does need a lightweight agenda of sorts. Is that I'm going to be involving you in the creation of that agenda. Right, your voice is going to drive what we talk about. That's a key signal, right that this is not about me, and so that will be another piece to create that foundation of having this meaningful discourse and then clearly my BIB behaviors throughout, Like,
I'm not going to fall into a status update trap. Right, if I want to know exactly what you're doing on task X, I'm going to hold my tongue unless it comes up naturally, because I can always schedule another meeting. I can always send you an email saying what's going on with project X, Right, So I have that ability. So this meeting, though, is different. This meeting is about
you and what you want to talk about. And so in general, you know, I think the ultimate goal is you keep sending signals that this is a meeting for the direct by firmly engaging them in the creation of the plan, and then behave in a way consistent with that and then set it up as a values consistent behavior activity.
So let's talk about in the one on one. Now, and you're talking about setting up an agenda or setting up a plan, what in your own life does that agenda typically look like for a one on one.
There's two approaches that I use that I also talk about in the book. So the first approach I'll use is a list approach, where I'll tell my employee listens, I want you to create a list of things that you want to talk about. I'll do the same, but your list is going to get priority. I'm only going to intersperse my items to the extent that they come up naturally, and if we have time, I'll bring up
my items. But when you create your list, I want you to think big picture, small picture, short term, long term. I want you to think team, organization, individual, I want you to think everything. I want you to tee up a lot of possibilities for you. So another approach that I've had some people prefer is having a set of core questions that I ask and so we can negotiate that together. So, for example, we can have a core question of what are the biggest obstacles that you're experiencing.
What are areas that you think I might be able to help you with, and so we can have a set of four or five core questions and then the direct is still clearly driving the conversation. I'm just providing a structure, so I alternate between those two approaches. The other thing I'll just throw out there, which I think is kind of interesting, is that, you know, I want to keep these things fresh, So even if something is working after a month or two, I'm going to change
it up, right. I don't want these to become stale. So one question that a lot of leaders ask, and it'd be a question that I often asked, is the simple question how are you? How are you right? That's pretty much a foundational questions. Sadly, that question doesn't work because when you ask someone how are you, it generally promotes just automatic responses I'm fine, good, pretty good, great, right. You don't get necessarily thoughtful responses. But here's a tweak.
I will say to someone, so, considering everything you know in work out of work on a scale of one to ten, with one being horrible, ten being great, how are you showing up today? Now I'm going to get different responses. I'm going to get scores of five. I'm going to get six's I'm going to get sevens, and now I have something to work with. Now I can say, tell me why you're a six, tell me what's keeping
you from being a ten? Right? So you can see that by playing with some of the response options, I'm able to get a lot more meaningful conversation with my people. So I'm really trying to assess what that person is willing to do and not. Do you know another example of the person doesn't tend to disclose readily, Then I will look for opportunities to be appropriately vulnerable right so they can see me do it. And that also creates some psychological safety.
What strategies do you have when a one on one is going off topic or it's feeling like it's unproductive, How do you identify that and then bring it back on track.
I'll say that we will have a plan of action. But if my direct winds up focusing on just the first item and they keep going and going and going, I'll stop them and say, I know that you brought up some other issues. I fear we're not going to get to that, but I am totally fine with that if that's what you want. So my job is not to stop them, is just to remind them of their choice.
And I'm going to respect their choice because if they want to talk about one particular thing, that's because they want to talk about one particular thing, and that's okay.
We will be back soon with Stephen talking about the perfect way to bring a one on one meeting to a close. If you're looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at Amantha dot substack dot com. That's Amantha dot substack dot com. How about bringing the meeting to a close.
So I guess I'm assuming you wanted to end on a note that feels motivating, so they're excited to go back out into the world and do their thing. How do you bring it to an end?
The close is definitely where you bring things together. You know you're really deciding, So for me, it's clarifying what we all decided on. You know, what did I commit to? What did you commit to? Also, the closes where I'll start to look at my notes to make sure I got it right, So I might say, hey, so did I get this right? And by the way, as an aside, what we found in the research is the best way to take notes is actually the old school pen and paper.
That old school note taking was just like this signal that you're more engaged and focused on the direct I thought that was kind of a fun finding. So our challenge as a manager, even when we've had a difficult conversation is to find some nuggets that allow us to help build someone's self esteem and at least our feelings about them. Right, So if I say to you, list, I know we talked about some tough stuff, but I want you to know I believe in you. I think
you can do this. I've seen you do this before. I've seen you have this challenge or this challenge and you overcame it. And I'm there and I'm with you. And so we can always find something that we can take out of our bag of tricks. And I'm not saying insincere, I'm still being sincere, but we can always find something that allows the conversation to end with a little less heaviness, a little bit more optimism, and we want to seek that out.
How do you evalue the success or the impact of your one.
On ones love it. You asked such awesome questions by the way, So yes, evaluation really really is important. So after one on one, the manager can certainly reflect and think about the quality. But sadly our perceptions are not always accurate. We can make them a little bit more accurate by changing perspective. So tell ourselves, Okay, let's evaluate it. But let's pretend we're the direct report doing it. We could focus on specifics, so let's think about three specific
things that went well, three specific things that didn't. We can focus on particular behavior, so I created all these behavioral checklists so we could reflect on those behaviors to see if we did that. So that's a self evaluation. But by far the most important thing to do is to solicit feedback, right input, And so we can do this through anonymous surveys where periodically we collect some data.
I am particularly keen on this product that was created by this company called Cairos up in Canada, and it's a plug in that plug isn't like into your outlook and then basically periodically it will survey your employees and create a dashboard of their experiences in one on ones. So managers can really learn I mean how fabulous. So
evaluation absolutely matters. And then once you collect those data, you have to learn, reflect, try new things, and you need to tell your direct So for me, I'll tell my folks here's what I would like to try differently to see if we can get value. But please know, in two months if this isn't working, let's ditch it try something else. So we have to have a disposition to change and an honest ability to reflect and ditch things that aren't working.
I want to also ask about I guess the medium that you use for one on ones, and it's changed so much in the last four or so years in terms of the options being phone or face to face or virtual where you can see the person but they're not with you. I'm wondering what has your go to been and what does the research say?
So my go to is whatever the direct wants. That's my go to. So I will ask, folks, how would you like to do this? I have done some research on the topic as well, and the most commonly desired place to have a one on one is actually the manager's office, nearly tied with that as a conference room. The least desired place was the direct's office. Interest in taking a walk and meeting at coffee shops tended to be more bimodal, where some people loving that idea and
other people not loving it. I didn't find any spaces that led to better one on ones. You know, it's just where people might feel more comfortable. But ultimately space doesn't drive six. You know, it's the utterances and the communication, the facilitation that fundamentally drives success. So for me, I again, I want to keep looking for signals.
I'm curious for remote first organizations where it's not an option to meet in the manager's office or the conference room or anything like that. You're basically choosing between a phone conversation or a virtual meeting. And I completely take your point, and I love that question, just asking your direct report what would they prefer? But also is there any research on which is actually better for connection and communication.
We do know that visual cues are helpful for deciphering emotions right and for a richer communication. So generally what's emerged in our data is that being able to see a face when you're having difficult conversations is the desired option. And so if you have a remote only workforce, I definitely think having video on zoom type thing is the best. But as I mean, every conversation has to be like that.
There absolutely could be value of just taking a walk on the telephone because it feels different and I like that, right, I like these one on ones feeling different at times. So I would say for me personally, and what I would advocate for others is just mix it up.
I'm curious about your views on how AI tools can help meetings versus hinder them. I have personally been using Fireflies in the last few months, which just automatically joins all my meetings and takes notes and I can refer back to it. Nick gives me some interesting statistics. But I'm also intrigued by what you shared around pen and paper is actually perceived as the best way to take there. So what's been your experience with AI mating tools?
So, first, I am a big fan of AI, so I'm not resisting the technology. I leverage it all the time in my different activities, so I'm a fan, But I actually don't think it has a strong place in one on ones because one on ones are about connection. They're truly about connection. It's one of those few times that we're dedicating to connection, and so I think that's where that old school note taking, right. It feels more real, more meaningful, and I think it helps. It's again a
signal of engagement. And so while AI could be more efficient, it's actually counter to the hope of one on ones, which is that deep connection. The one place I would consider using AI when it comes to one on ones is over time. For each of my directs, I'm basically
collecting in a sense, a diary of notes. One thing that AI is awesome with is I could take that diary of notes, right, So if I've transcribed it into a shared document, which is what I typically do, I can feed it into AI and I could say, what are the themes that you're noticing. I can even assign dates
and say are you noticing changes over time? AI handles tasks like that really really well, so it can do a thematic analysis, and that could be really helpful, you know, especially as I move into performance appraisal season, right, I'll have those types of data, So I see AI as more of a back end tool, you know, to help me make more broader sense of the data.
Daven I have absolutely loved chatting to you. I mentioned before we hit recording that your name came up and your research came up in my workplace at Inventium literally the day before I got to reach out from your people about coming on how I work, so the timing was fortuitous. I have loved this chat. I'm going to insist that all my team listen to it. Thank you so much for putting such great work into the world. I truly appreciate it.
Well, thank you. I appreciate that your questions were fabulous, and I definitely hope people check out my website because I have a ton of resources on there. So it's just Steven Rogelberg dot com. I'm sure you'll have it in your show notes, but definitely there's lots of resources. I have links for buying the book clearly, but I do want to tell folks I am donating all my royalties to charity, so there's no personal gain here. It's all going to charity because it's just important for me
to get this content out. And furthermore, I hate asking people to buy my book, so it's much easier if I tell them I'm not making money off of it. So please buy the book by the book if you want to learn about one on once. The money's all going to cancer research, so buy the book if you want to help eradicate cancer.
We'll get better at one on one meetings as well, So the book is glad we met. I will link to that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Steven Oh, thank.
You so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
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with me via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy to find. Just search for Amantha Imba. How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of the cool And Nation. I am so grateful for being able to work and live on this beautiful land, and I want to pay my respects to elder's past present and emerging. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios.
The producer for this episode
Was Liam Reardon, and thank you to Martin Nimba who did the audio mix and makes everything sound better than it would have otherwise.