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Hold Standing One-on-Ones

THIS MAY SEEM like a very obvious tip. It is. However, in our experience, there are managers who are not meeting with their individual team members on a regular basis. Don’t believe us? Simply ask five friends outside your organization whether or not they have regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with their staff. And if they don’t, why not? We are confident you can think of the reasons: lack of time or resources, differing locations, too many tasks on the to-do list, and any number of other excuses. Yes, we truly regard these as excuses. We had previously mentioned that managers should be great coaches (Tip #10: Coach for Performance). After all, they’re charged with aligning and mentoring staff to help meet the organization’s strategic objectives and be good organizational citizens. Right? Often, this is not the case. Think about it for a moment. How often do you meet with your supervisor? Is your supervisor guiding your development and growth in the organization? We hope so.

As the book The Leader’s Voice asserts, “the biggest problem with leadership communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”¹⁴ Think about this statement for a moment. If we were to ask a former supervisor of yours if she or he had been open and available, we imagine receiving a response like, “Yes, I always told that person to feel free to set a meeting.” However, your perception and experience might have been much different—and you may have eventually given up. Your supervisor may have said the right things but had a more difficult time linking actions with words.

Standing one-on-ones can be part of the solution. Maybe not every week, but managers we know who really want to develop their team make this a priority. If time is an issue, schedule the meeting. As with any good meeting, the discussion should end when the objectives of the meeting have been accomplished. Finally, remember to include some time during this meeting for developmental conversation. You can certainly incorporate many of the tips we suggest in this book during the one-on-one meeting.