Leading 1 to 1s

 Hello and welcome to our second episode of the Testing Peers podcast.  My name is Chris and I'm here with Russell, Simon, and David as well. Full compliments. Good job.  Today, we're going to talk about one to ones, but before we do that. Hey Simon, what's going on with that shirt?  

Why do you always do that?

You never, how can you do that on a podcast? 

No one's gonna ever know the shirt.  

It has to be a case of, if you want to see what shirt Simon was wearing, check out Testing Peers on Twitter. 

Or I could just say, Simon is wearing a shirt, it's kind of, yeah. 

It's pink.  

So, Simon. Yeah, pink shirt, what's going on? 

At least we agree it's pink now.  

It's not pink.

Yeah, it's brown. It's brown. What's what, is it pink, is it brown? Tune in to AtTestingTitters, let's see if we can lose some followers.  

Lose some? We have to gain some first. We've got a few followers, 

hey. 

I will post, I will post a picture of this shirt when episode 2 goes up so people can comment on what colour it is. 

Start a whole new blue dress type situation

 

at Testing Piers we got 40 followers. 

40? 

So essentially, it was quite a good thing to point out your shirt because frankly we don't really know what it is. 

I don't care if I'm the buck of the jokes, it's fine.  

Today we're going to talk about one to ones. I guess leading a one to one often is initially your approach comes from your own experiences of one to ones in the past.

So it might be quite good to look at what it is you found useful and what it is you've really not found useful in your one to ones. Historically as someone that's had one to ones rather than being the leader because that normally frames the way you approach as a leader. 

Yeah, I mean it's one of those things. 

Certainly in my earlier years, one to ones were seen as a sporadic thing that you didn't need to have because you sat with the team anyway. So you, you have them once a month or once every quarter, just so you could check that you're meeting your goals and whatever else. But it has certainly become in the last few years, it's been pressed from all angles that one to ones are important.

You need to be doing them regular to meet up with your team and et cetera, et cetera. And I've had experience where managers would literally They'd probably cancel 90 percent of them because they didn't have anything to talk about. And that was one of the key things for me was one to one should always be about both parties, not just one or the other.

And if the manager had nothing to talk about, it didn't seem to matter whether you had or not, they would just cancel it. Anyway, they'd cancel it by email, just. Reject the meeting and then it doesn't happen. So you end up going around chasing for some time with your manager to discuss stuff. I've had more experienced later ones where there's been much more structured.

I had a really good boss before I left McAfee, who retired at a similar time to me leaving, where he would structure a document and he'd have his things of what he wanted to talk about in the meeting. And he'd leave me a section for me to fill out beforehand, but I wanted to talk about this. And then we'd just go through the agenda.

It was quite structured, but it meant there was always, you know, Discussion points already made that you could prepare for. And I think sometimes  there's benefits of being prepared for one to ones because it means that you've got the stuff in place. You can have the discussions fully rather than being so informal.

Ultimately one to ones serve two purposes. One is checking in with the others. And the other reason is you've got information to, to share with each other. So it depends really what the purpose of the one to ones is. If it's just a personal check in, then they can be informal. But if there is stuff to share.

between the two of you and not status. I don't mean project status stuff, but if there's other stuff that needs to be shared, it's good to have that formalized in some way. 

I think you're right. I think also it's important in one to ones to have an interest as, especially as a manager, you need to have an interest.

You can't just be asking questions about how you're feeling and then moving on to the, to your own agenda, actually have an interest in your actual person. And that comes across as part of the relationship between the manager and the person you're having one to one with. I also think that. People come in with their own agendas.

There are people in our group who like to talk much more about the sort of formality and what projects they're working on and everything else. And other people are happy to go with the flow and have a bit more fluid and react. much more to have a two way conversation, whereas others are more of a reporting type one to one, and therefore you need to gauge that as you actually go through.

And I think that's different to my experience because obviously how I react in a one to one is different to have other people come to you with their own agendas. 

I'll go back to Simon's point originally, which is  talking about some of the differences between updates and one to ones. I've got a history of managers who believe a one to one is simply just a project status update or work status update.

So you come in prepared to asking for update on X, Y, Z, giving you an update from their management meeting and so on. I've never got on well with those sorts of one to ones personally. And it's kind of been something that I've tried to reflect.  Uh, I try to avoid, uh, with the teams I work with, I'm very much more interested in the people, the empathy, the finding out what's going on in their lives, what's going on in the world. 

Is there any support they need? Is there any questions they've got? Basically the check in, the informal, a lot of companies have kind of got sort of formal processes that you must do a monthly one to one, or you must do a fortnightly one, or you must do X, Y, and Z.  But most of them I've worked on, I've never prescribed what it should be.

They don't give you much coaching on that. They don't give you much help. But to Simon's point about, you listen to the managers you liked, you listen to the managers that didn't work so well for you and you tailor yourself. So I found myself being someone who talks a lot. Can't help that. But someone who actually empathizes a lot with the people and gets them talking.

But it doesn't work for everyone. I've got one to ones with people that last 10 15 minutes, and I've got one to ones with people that last 90 minutes.  It depends on the people. I'm not the linchpin that makes the decision whether it's a 10 minute or a 90 minute conversation. It's the topics that people want to speak about, their personal life, their work life, projects, what support you can give them.

Whether you want to cover an outcome, which is additional coaching sessions or something else like that, I find it's very good to be adaptive to the person, even if the company or corporate culture is you must do this.  My most recent example was my own sort of boss where he would have three one to ones with me a week.

And trust me, that's a status update. There is no one to one conversation in nature that's coming out of that. There's no personality. It's a tell. It's a 10 minute kind of stand up for want of a better word. They're not one to ones. Even if you do it one to one, it doesn't mean it's a one to one.  To me, one to one's got to get into the sort of emotional, the people. 

I want to know them as a person, not as a commodity or not as a deliverer of projects.  And I do find that trying to get your one to one to the point in which, if it's a 10 minute conversation, everyone's happy, and if it's an hour conversation, everyone's happy, but no one leaves it feeling it was a waste of time, that it was done for the sake of it, and that you're not there to help them.

And I think to both your points as well, you want to build a relationship that will come to you and ask for you one to one that it's not just a formality that it's one to one for everything like advice, help, support, problem with something you want to be approachable. And I think those more arranged one to ones, you know, making sure you at least give some time aside per month.

Make sure that they do happen and make sure you can kind of build the bond, which therefore allows you to be flexible and fluid, you've got to build that to start with. 

 I totally agree. And I think one thing for me as well is always making sure that you're giving them the attention in the meetings. I've been in one to ones where my boss has been on a laptop, typing away, responding to emails while they're talking to me.

And actually, you know, you feel straight away. This is why am I here? What's the benefit here? It really, for me, is more about. As you say, Russell, giving them the focus, giving them the attention and making sure they know that you care and for whatever they want to talk about, whether it be work related, non work related, just be the listener and support them as and when needed.

Going to your article, Chris, I liked the point you made about one to ones, not having to be in a meeting room and go for a walk or, or sit outside or do whatever else. And that's, that's something that I tried in previous roles where I'd, I'd, we'd walk, we'd walk to the canteen and we'd sit and have a coffee, or we'd walk across the car park and just walk around for a bit and just chat and actually. 

Sometimes that makes them more talkative, because, you know, silences can be more awkward when you're walking. So I guess it makes people talk more. It's useful to have different ways of having the meetings. 

Yeah, the more formal you make it, the more formal it is, if that makes sense. So by having the casual walk, the coffee break, previously we were always in kind of a big open foyer sort of thing.

You grab a coffee, you sit down, you just sit in an armchair, have a chat.  It wasn't a very enclosed space. If someone wanted to make more private, you went somewhere more private, but by default, everyone knew you were going into canteen area type thing, and it made everyone more relaxed and made everyone more open.

When I've done one to ones in meeting rooms, it has defaulted to formality, whether that's me defaulting to it or the room or the, other individual, I couldn't tell you. But yeah, definitely walking around. That's a good one, especially in the moment. 

Actually, it's a good point about the formality. I don't have my own office.

So we do often have meetings in meeting rooms for my one to ones, but we also have a roof garden. So especially, uh, I'm missing it now, but in the, you know, in the summer, we would have our meetings up there again, because it's outside, it's in the fresh air and people like the difference and it's amazing how few people from our work actually use that as as a meeting space it's it's available for for us as long as it's not used for clients but people don't  see it they get used to their formality of oh I must have a meeting in the meeting room and breaking away from that is is really quite good I was going to say that I've got quite a large group so I What I do is,  at times it feels a bit like a doctor's surgery.

So on an afternoon, I will block off half hour slots for each particular person. So in that respect, they are a bit time boxed, but if someone wants to talk more, they, I do have the flexibility of, Potentially suggesting someone else come back later or making an interim, another meeting later on during the day or the next day in order to catch up with them and make sure that they're okay, or if they're the last person just keeping on with them, allowing that flexibility of the timing.

But exactly like Russell said, you know, some people can be talking for want to talk for the full half hour and other people might just want to just have a 10 minutes. You know, have you got any news for me, right? Okay. I'm off a tight scenario. 

Yeah. I think the other thing as well, I mean, I, I can't remember who said it, but someone said it on a, on one of the leadership podcasts I listened to, it may have been Lara Hogan, who's written the resilient manager book. 

She said about having that time to prepare yourself for the meeting and then afterwards having the ability to write up anything that's been asked that needs to be documented and just to acknowledge, you know, if you said in the meeting, you're going to do this for them, well, here's the, here's the email that I'm confirming that I'm going to go away and do this for you.

As I said in the meeting, just so they've got that confidence that you're going to follow up and do it. The other thing that is really important is with the multicultural society we live in, there is sometimes some cultures that automatically put that, that ranking on a manager. They suddenly becomes more formal because they start treating you more formal.

And it's about trying to break those barriers down and making sure that they can treat you as an equal rather than feeling like you're the superior to them. That's, you know, always looking down on them. And that's a really, really crucial thing to try and break as well. And one to one sometimes can be the thing that, that does that because you spend time talking to them about stuff other than work related tasks.

It's a fine line when you are doing that because you're trying to forge a relationship with them where you can be a bit more open and a bit more human. But the whole thing about line management, even if it's not a hierarchy, there is still a line by which you shouldn't cross. It's not your out of the box friendship.

You aren't  peers. It's not an accountability group. It is still about them and you still have a responsibility for them. And that can actually be more difficult than others. I've had managers that I felt like we could have been really good friends, but that line couldn't be crossed. I've had managers where I thought.

There's no way in a million years I could be friends, and actually, in all fairness, the one to ones with those guys weren't the best. 

I've had bosses that, during work, they've been a manager underling relationship, but then once they've left the company or I've moved on to a different area,  we've become friends, and it has been something that's sort of lasted.

I've had a couple really that, managers wise, I got on really well with them, and actually we've become friends since. So yeah, you're right, there is a line to draw there. You don't want to be that manager that's so friendly that they don't know where the line is and suddenly you have to come down on like a ton of bricks or you have to have a difficult conversation with them over something.

Maybe the company's in trouble and then you need to make cuts. And if you've built up friendships with the team, then that makes it more difficult for you to have those discussions. So there is definitely a line to To hold yourself back on, but that doesn't mean you can't build up some kind of productive relationship with them in that manager direct report scenario.

I think it's important to again, draw the line. Like you said, the difference between friendship. However, it's important to show a bit of yourself. If you're expecting them to open up to you, they need to feel comfortable that we will share things with them again, within the confines and the confidentiality and the professionalism of the job.

If they feel that they're getting something from you, then they're more likely to feel responsive. 

So what I was going to say is, I think you're right, there's definitely a line there. But the line doesn't mean you can't be friends. It just means that your friendship isn't unending, if that makes sense.

There is boundaries to it. So I've had managers who managed me, who I would consider friends whilst they were managing me, but they were still first and foremost, probably my manager. and friend secondly, if that makes sense. And there was boundaries of what they would tell me, what they wouldn't tell me, that other friends through other companies would cross easily because they knew I wasn't in their domain.

Um, you know, they tell me about their bosses, et cetera, whereas colleagues at work, that part of the friendship wasn't part of the conversation. We talk about family, we talk about pub, talk about shared interests still. And we'd go to the pub together and things like that, but there was definitely a, there's lines, I have to say, it's about figuring out where those lines are and different people can cope differently.

Some people can't have any blurred lines. Some people can have very blurred lines. Some people can have blurred lines until the point you get to where they've got to give you bad news, but you've got to find what works for you as an individual. But you can't assume that everyone's going to be the same, your bosses or your underlings, as you said, I think, before.

Um, I've got, what's the term for that? 

That's a terminology that's going to go down really well. 

Yeah, I don't like that term. Um, your, you know, your, your colleagues, your, I don't know what the right term is. 

Reports. Reports. Direct reports. If it's the manager that's doing the one to ones because there's another bit where it could be that the one to one isn't necessarily done by a manager, it could be a lead, or a senior,  or a mentor, or a coach, or yadda yadda yadda yadda.

Yeah, but yeah, I think it is an interesting where that line lies. Now, I don't prescribe to the black and white. I think it's very, very grey, but I don't know many people that can toe that line very well. Does that make sense? I've definitely met some people that cross it. I've definitely met people that are the opposite.

They're so scared of becoming friends. They pretty much build a brick wall and don't show any emotions.  I can't, I've had one to ones with those people and I struggled, I need emotion. 

I think another thing that's quite key is that if you have one to ones with multiple people, that you allow for the, the one to one process with each person to develop in its own way.

You don't try and force a standard form of one to ones across all, Because you may find that you have one report that likes the, the formality of having a preset agenda based on collaborative points from both of you. And then you'll find another one that just wants to come along to the meeting, sit down, talk about their life for half an hour, feel they've got something off their chest.

You've moved on with certain parts of problems, you've been a coach or a mentor or something for them in that time. And then. They go away again. So it is about allowing yourself to develop those one to one strategies differently with each individual. 

Does that make perfect sense? I've tried a recently weird strategy, but I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it, if I'm honest, but for the last 12 months, my previous place, I made the one to one the responsibility of the colleague, if that makes sense.

So I made them booking it in, make them kind of accountable as one of their objectives to arrange it. And to change it, to move it, because I had a history probably the year before that of moving them left, right and center, because it was in my calendar, I put it in, I could just move it around,  switching it across.

I made it more the ownership of those people to kind of make sure that they felt they get the value out of it, that they put it in when they think it was most valuable to them. And it kind of did change the relationship within the sort of conversations. It meant they came a bit more prepared because they were more invested in it because they arranged it.

Not hugely. It wasn't, you know, chalk and cheese difference, but it was definitely, I got notes sent to me in advance of kind of one to ones of bits and bobs I'd been up to. It was the year before. I'd asked every single time, never got anything. So it kind of did change the dynamic a little bit. Did it work?

No, because I think there's certain personalities that did it because you asked them to do it still, if that makes sense. But I think it, it did work for some people that they felt more empowered by taking ownership. And they actually probably got more out of the experience, became their meeting, not my meeting with them, became their one on one, which sounds brilliant, and it is, but yeah, it didn't work for everyone, has to be said.

I can understand that some people would not be as comfortable with setting their own agenda, and you might find if some of your reports are a bit more standoffish, they may well just keep kicking their one to ones down. So there is a responsibility as a manager in order to make sure that you still maintain contact with them, even if they try and do that.

I was going to also go back to one of Russell's points, that friendship dividing line. There's always a difficulty from when I got promoted from within the group. So people that were my peers at a time suddenly became my reports. And again, people react to that in different ways. I remember we all go down to lunch together and someone said, Well, now, now you're our boss.

Are you? going to actually have lunch with us. And I go, well, yeah, I'm still able to have a laugh with you and do whatever. It's just that, that you report to me at the same time. And I mean, it has changed the relationship with certain,  I know more about the whole company than they do. So there is that fine line, but actually that initial part of when I moved from being a peer to their line manager was a bit of a tricky one and had to be a bit careful because also the way I.

Managed people was different to their previous manager. And so therefore, again, there's that sort of transition period in that as well. 

I kind of agree with that. I went through a similar thing when I first became a manager and yeah, when I went from a lead to a manager, I had people that become quite resentful because I think they wanted the role as well.

And then having to build that relationship back up again, point where there. Willing to work for me was quite difficult and it, it took a lot of, you know, nurturing support, showing them that I'm going to do what they need me to do, you know, making the small promises and following through on them to make sure they were happy.

And it took a lot of sacrifice on my part to get that team back up to speed again. It is difficult. And I had exact examples is what David said, uh, just go and sit and have lunch with them. And they're like, what are you doing? Sit with us. Like,  well, I'm still the same person. I still need to eat.  Let me come and sit with you.

Um, and it took a little while to, to get over that others were, you know, ecstatic that I was their manager because they'd worked with me so long. They knew how I ticked, they knew what I would do to support them because I did it as a lead, and it was just that formality of becoming a line manager to them.

So,  and again, it comes down to you have to be able to adapt to whoever every, is your team and, and make sure that everybody is treated as an equal and an individual. But yeah, it, it is tricky.  If you have experience of one to ones, maybe good, maybe bad, which you'd like to share with us, then reach out to us on Twitter, at TestingPeers, and maybe we can include your discussion in future episodes. 

Thank you for listening to the second TestingPeers podcast.  If you'd like to follow us, or see the colour of Simon's shirt on Twitter, then please go to, at TestingPeers. Or email us with any comments, feedback, or topics that you think you'd like to hear us discuss. Contact us at TestingPeers. com.  We hope you enjoyed listening, and invite you back in a couple of weeks to hear another topic. 

For now,  it's goodbye from the Testing Peers.  Goodbye.