On this episode, we discuss the importance of good quality and frequent one-to-ones with your team members.
When I first start working with clients, I like to understand the quality and frequency of the one-to-ones that they have with their team members. This gives me a very good insight into how much time and energy goes into developing the people around them. Most of the clients I work with want an easier life; they want to shed some of their functional responsibilities so they have more time and bandwidth to focus on strategic issues. If that’s the case for you, then you really need to nail your one-to-ones.
Often, people don’t have one-to-ones because they feel like, “Well, we chat anyway.” For me, that shows a real lack of understanding as to why a one-to-one should happen in the first place. One-to-ones aren’t a forum for operational issues. They should be about the person and giving them an opportunity to talk about what challenges they have, so that you can coach them through those challenges if that’s appropriate. It should be a forum for them to deliver feedback to you about how you can support them better, and for you to deliver feedback to them about what you’re seeing, where they can improve, and where they are doing well.
One-to-ones are about having those deep conversations that won’t happen over a cup of coffee or in the middle of a team meeting. One-to-ones are there so that the person can get the time and space they need from you to help them develop as a person, and you just can’t do that in any other forum.
So, think about the team members that report to you. How often should you be sitting down with each of those people to have a good quality one-to-one? What preparation do you think they need to do, and what do you need to do, before the one-to-one even takes place? How disciplined do you need to start being around your one-to-ones? If you bump your one-to-ones because of client meetings or issues that arise, then you aren’t really respecting that person’s time and their development.
Stop and think: What do you need to do over the next couple of days to start really prioritizing these one-to-ones, so that you can bring your people along with you as your business grows and becomes more complicated?
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