It’s one of the most important meetings for employees’ career success, yet many people are going about it completely wrong.
We’re talking about the one-on-one meeting between managers and their direct reports.
“One-on-ones can absolutely be the greatest leadership managerial tool that leaders have for engaging, aligning and building more commitment from their people,” meeting science expert Steven Rogelberg tells CNBC Make It.
“There’s something incredibly powerful about truly seeing your people, finding a dedicated time to understand their challenges and issues and offering support.”
Rogelberg is Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte teaching organizational science, management and psychology. He has written two books on holding more effective meetings, including “Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings.”
“The problem is that so many managers are conducting these one-on-ones in a way to meet their needs and not the needs of their people,” Rogelberg says. “They conduct the meeting to monitor their employees’ work, and that’s not the goal of these.”
Instead, one-on-ones should have a “lightweight agenda,” Rogelberg says, that’s “being driven ideally by the employee or in concert with the manager.”
Employees should come prepared with what they’d like to discuss with their manager, or a manager can ask broad questions as jumping-off points for the employee to take the conversation in any direction they want.
“The more the employee is involved in it, then it’s constantly sending the signal that this meeting is indeed for you, not me,” Rogelberg says.
Effective one-on-one meetings can increase employee engagement and retention. Managers may also have fewer disruptions throughout the workday if employees bundle their questions for their one-on-ones. That’s incumbent on managers committing to give reports their undivided attention when meeting, Rogelberg says.
“When it’s truly focused on the employee, and the manager is truly listening and engaging on the employee’s terms, then these benefits can accrue,” he adds.
Research supports managers meeting with their reports weekly for the most positive outcomes, Rogelberg says. These benefits trail off on a biweekly schedule and are fewer still when people meet even less frequently than that.
Whatever your cadence, try to stick with it. When managers frequently cancel a meeting with a direct report, it can inadvertently signal to them that they’re not valued.
If you’re crunched for time, it’s “less about the actual minutes and more about the consistency,” according to Rogelberg.
“They don’t have to be long,” he says. “They just have to be genuine and meaningful.”
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