How to Perfect the 1:1 Meeting
For the next few weeks, we’re going to dig into remote work.
We’ve been an entirely digital team since before COVID. We didn’t really call it “work from home” or “remote work.” Those are terms that came when the coronavirus pandemic hit and now we’ve come to embrace as part of the New World of Work.
In the past six years, we’ve learned a lot about how to keep a virtual workplace thriving. It can be harder to build rapport if you haven’t “met” your co-workers in real life, but we’ve found several strategies that have worked for our team.
I rely on some key elements: the 1:1 meeting, a weekly watercooler, and mentoring, and we’ll go into each of them in coming weeks.
First up, the 1:1 meeting.
A weekly 1:1 meeting is a must to keep employees engaged and performing their best. These sessions build trust, ensure alignment, and keep the business — and their careers — moving at a fast pace, benefiting both the company and the employee.
I’ve found that a week is exactly the right amount of time between meetings. That’s generally enough time to try out a new strategy, send that email you’ve been avoiding, catch up on that one project that’s been lingering.
Although I have a couple of other managers I trust, these aren’t meetings that I can delegate to other people. Our shop is intentionally small enough so that I can keep enough time in my schedule for these one-on-one relationships.
Here’s how we structure ours:
- I use the first few minutes to check in on the person, not the things they’re working on. The life stuff. We talk about what’s going on in their lives and how they are generally feeling. This is a great point to do a little mental health check-in and to identify if burnout or disinterest is setting in. There are some weeks where this part is half of the call, and that’s totally okay by me.
- Next, we discuss work. I ask about what’s progressing and what’s stuck. I want to hear their questions and thoughts about tasks, clients, teammates, etc.
- I always make sure to leave a little time for talking about growth and real-time feedback. This is the mentoring stage that I’ll talk about more in a couple of weeks. I’ve found that there’s nothing worse than waiting a full year for an annual review; I’d rather handle issues as they come up, and the same goes for praise!
- We end the call with alignment. Sometimes, it’s just a quick, “Here’s what I’m taking away from today…” and other times, we are scheduling a follow-up or firming up tasks in our project management software.
One of the best things about these meetings is that they are predictable and reliable. I don’t skip 1:1 meetings, and we don’t move them to accommodate other meetings. I want my employees to know that I fiercely protect this time with them because I want them to feel the same kind of fierce protection of me and my time.
I cherish the 1:1s with my people. They take up a huge amount of time each week, but I never look at it as time wasted; instead, it’s time gained. It’s a chance to connect on many levels and enjoy the process together.
