Supercharge Your One-on-One Meetings

ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard.

We see a lot of advice about how to run more effective meetings: make sure the right people are in the room, circulate an agenda, solicit everyone’s opinion, rotate the note-taker, leave with action items. But most people don’t think very carefully about the meetings that actually might be the most important for individuals who want to progress in their careers and managers who want to get the best out of their team members. That meeting is the one-on-one.

Most of us know that bosses and direct reports need to have regular check-ins, but does that really happen in practice, or do you mostly do it in the course of work and save the formal meeting for performance review time? Even if you are meeting regularly, are you being thoughtful about it? Do you have an agenda, or do you just shoot the breeze? Are you accomplishing anything?

Today’s guest is here to explain why one-on-one meetings are so critical and how to make the most of them, whether in person or virtual. Steven Rogelberg is the chancellor’s professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He wrote the book Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, as well as the HBR article Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings. Steven, welcome.

STEVEN ROGELBERG: Thank you, it’s great to be here.

ALISON BEARD: So let’s start with the current state of things. Most organizations do require bosses to do annual, or biannual, or quarterly performance reviews with their reports, and a lot of managers, I think, do dutifully put check-ins with individual team members on the calendar. But why don’t we think more carefully about one-on-ones beyond that?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: So in our research with a host of organizations, we have found none – none – that actually provide any training to their managers around one-on-one meetings. I have found only two that explicitly provide guidance that managers should be doing this with their folks on a regular cadence and monitoring whether it’s actually happening. So basically, it’s a free-for-all. And like many things, managers just tend to recycle their past experiences. And that’s problematic when those past experiences are far from optimal.

ALISON BEARD: So what are some of the common mistakes that you see made beyond just not having them?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: There’s so many. One common mistake is the manager doing the majority of the talking as opposed to the direct doing the majority of the talking. Another common mistake is just the wrong cadence.

So a typical cadence is often once a month, and you just don’t get the same benefits as if that cadence is weekly or bi-weekly. Having no agenda or plan of actions, another common mistake. Falling into the status update trap is another one. Not asking well-rounded questions, not thinking about the personal needs of the direct and just focusing on the tactical needs. Not involving the direct enough into the conversation, a weak start, a weak end, frequent cancellations. These are some of the most common problems that derail one-on-ones.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And I have a really good relationship with my boss, and we have regular one-on-ones, but I will admit that sometimes we fall into some of those pitfalls. What are the benefits that we’re missing out on for individuals, teams, and organizations when we forget about one-on-ones or we sail through them and don’t do them, make all of those mistakes that you just described?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: So an effective one-on-one approach leads to so many positive outcomes. In many regards, it’s one of the greatest leadership opportunities. Effectively doing one-on-ones promotes employee engagement, it promotes retention of your top talent. Doing effective one-on-ones seems to elevate team success. Anytime you elevate the success of those that report into you, well that’s a reflection of you as a manager. So good one-on-ones also are tied to managerial success.

And furthermore, in many regards, a good one-on-one is the front line for your inclusion efforts. The one-on-one is where we can truly see our directs. So it’s critical on that front too. I also want to say that one of the subtle outcomes of excellent one-on-ones is your own personal life satisfaction. The research is pretty clear on life satisfaction, that helping is one of the key predictors of it, and one-on-ones are just that perfect opportunity to help others, give to others, and through both, experience increased life satisfaction.

ALISON BEARD: So why don’t organizations train managers to be better in engaging in these kinds of meetings, or even mandate that they have them?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: It’s so interesting. There are so many blind spots when it comes to the world of meetings. We have individual leader blind spots. So leaders think they’re better at doing these things than their directs say they are. And then organizations, I think they just assume that managers can do these things and do them well. And this assumption is just misguided, as our research generally shows that around 50% of one-on-ones are not rated optimally.

And interestingly, if you look at organizational systems to kind of monitor the investment in meetings and one-on-ones, they just don’t exist. You don’t find content on engagement surveys. You don’t find systems that help bring feedback to the managers to provide that enlightenment. And there’s a host of really good applications out there that can facilitate this anonymous feedback gathering. I love, for example, what this company called Kairos is doing where they are promoting the gathering of feedback from directs so that the manager can truly gain insights.

It’s so fascinating to me, meetings are this multi multi-billion, billion, billion-dollar work activity, and yet we don’t monitor that investment. So the parallel is IT, for example. We invest tons of money in IT, and yet we build systems to see whether that investment is truly working for us. Meetings are more expensive than IT. I want to repeat that. Meetings are more expensive than IT, and yet we’re not doing things to monitor that investment. And without that monitoring, we’re not able to provide feedback to leaders. Without providing feedback, then we can’t hold them accountable. And when you couple that with that leader blind spot, you have the recipe for stagnation.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, it sounds like the problem with one-on-one meetings is not necessarily that there’s so much time and energy being invested in them and they’re not being done as effectively as they could, but that it’s like an opportunity lost, right?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: That’s a fabulous summary. In fact, in one of our research projects, we asked people, “Do you want more or less one-on-ones with their manager?” And so initially, we thought the people who would say that they want less one-on-ones would just be a function of their workload or the fact that they have so many other meetings on their calendar.

What we found is that when employees are getting good one-on-ones with their manager, no matter how busy they are, no matter how many meetings they have, they want more. They want more. And in fact, when we ask employees of different organizational levels how many one-on-ones they want with their manager, we assumed that those more entry-level employees, those first-line supervisors, that they would want the most, right? But we found just the opposite. More senior managers wanted the most amount of one-on-ones, and I think that’s because they know how critical they can potentially be to their success.

A one-on-one meeting is the stage for leadership. It is where the employee experiences you as a human being and as a leader. Every minute that you spend in one-on-ones truly is time that is well spent, and that you ultimately will receive all kinds of positive outcomes from. A subtle one is that when leaders are having regular one-on-ones with their people, what they generally notice is that employees have less spontaneous interactions throughout the week. Basically, they save their questions, or concerns, or thoughts for that one-on-one because they know it’s coming. So managers wind up having more time in their days for them to get into flow and to engage in deep work.

ALISON BEARD: So let’s talk now about how to do one-on-ones better. First, what is the right cadence?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: The data that has been collected generally shows that a weekly cadence is most ideal, followed by the bi-weekly cadence. In both of those cadences, you’re building momentum, you’re tracking themes throughout it. So it just has this natural flow to help create a nice foundation for the relationship.

And the issue with monthly one-on-ones or a less frequent cadence is that they’re plagued with a recency bias. So when we’re meeting with someone once a month, the things that we talk about tend to be the things that just happen that past week. So the monthly doesn’t seem to really be as beneficial. It’s still better than nothing, but definitely not as good as the weekly or bi-weekly.

And I will say that some managers get into this trap of actually having more than one one-on-one a week. And that’s also not a good idea, because that can lead to feelings of just being micromanaged. So a manager doing a weekly one-on-one for 20, 25 minutes, or a bi-weekly for 45 minutes, that seems to yield the greatest gains.

ALISON BEARD: And then what about location? If you’re not virtual, should it be in the office? Should it be somewhere more casual like a coffee shop? Do you like walking meetings?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: So we actually collected data on employee preferences. We don’t know from the research, exactly which location yields the greatest outcomes. We don’t have those data, but we do have people’s preferences. And generally, people have a leaning for face-to-face in person, but it’s not a strong majority. They tend to prefer the face-to-face if it’s going to be talking about some tricky issues.

The location that was rated the most favorably was actually just doing it in the manager’s office or a conference room. The location that received the lowest ratings was doing it in the direct’s office. And then taking a walk or meeting in a coffee shop received basically bimodal support. So there were a lot of people who really preferred this approach, but then there was a similar number of people who didn’t want it. So this is just where you want to have that conversation.

Ultimately, a one-on-one meeting is a meeting that’s orchestrated by the manager, but it’s for the direct. And therefore, let’s give the direct voice. Let’s help them shape it. If they want to take a walk, well, let’s take a walk. And there’s actually lots of good reasons for taking a walk. When two humans are walking next to each other, they actually tend to disclose more meaty issues for whatever reason. So while there’s no absolute truth when it comes to where to meet, there are a variety of options. And I think in many regards, the best managers just look to mix it up, and involve the direct in helping make the best choice.

ALISON BEARD: So now let’s dig into content. How do you prepare for these kinds of meetings? First, maybe tell me how the manager should get ready, and then how the employee might.

STEVEN ROGELBERG: Preparation absolutely matters. Both parties should actually be keeping a little bit of a journal, or a log, or a running draft email, where they’re making note of topics and issues that they would like to broach, so that when it comes to actually deciding on what to talk about, in many regards, that work has been done.

I’ve even seen some managers, and I love this practice, is they create an asynchronous document for each of their people. And really throughout that, they’re building the agenda. People are saying, “Hey, let’s be sure to talk about this on Friday,” or what have you. So I love that approach as well. And then we can also kind of track some progress that way.

But in those efforts, it’s essential that the manager keeps cueing their people, that they just don’t want these one-on-ones to be about the day-to-day work, that they also want to be able to consider longer horizon issues, career development issues, and the like.

And then throughout this, it’s just that constant reminder. And this is a reminder to the manager themselves, just that reminder that this meeting is going to be for you, team member, and your agenda is really what’s going to drive this. In fact, one of the greatest predictors we have of one-on-one meeting success is the direct either creating the agenda themselves or doing it in concert with the leader. When the leader creates the agenda on their own, ratings of one-on-one effectiveness, were just not nearly as good.

ALISON BEARD: What about if you as a manager do have something that you need to share, whether it’s good news, or bad news, or advice? Do you signal that beforehand? Do you call it different meeting?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: Yes. So you do want to signal that. You still want to privilege what’s on the minds of the employee in those. And if you run out of time and aren’t able to get to your issues, then you absolutely can schedule another conversation around that.

The employee’s issues and topics, they don’t have to be signaled to you, you’ll be fine. This is not a vulnerable activity for you. But certainly, if you have issues or topics, I do think it’s helpful to signal so that people are just kind of primed that this is something to be discussed.

The meeting shouldn’t start with you unloading your topics. The meeting should still start with questions such as, “What’s on your mind? How can I help you? What are your challenges and where can I support you?” Is there any information that you might need around priorities? Is there any feedback that I could share with you that could be helpful? So we still want to make sure that the spotlight is really focused on meeting the needs of the direct.

ALISON BEARD: So let’s talk about that. You’re in the meeting itself, you are asking open-ended questions, or focusing on your direct report. What else should you aim for in terms of tone, body language, how much you talk versus the other person?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: So I’m maybe going to back up a little bit. One of the things that I talk about in the book that I think this is such a neat finding is something called the Pygmalion effect. What the research shows is your attitude towards that direct really drives a lot of your behavior in the one-on-one towards that direct.

So for example, if you think the direct is lazy or is really not going to run with things, then that shapes the questions you ask. But on the other side, if you go in there with this attitude that this direct can grow, that this direct is motivated, your questioning and listening fundamentally changes. You’re much more engaged.

So if you have a problem employee, that should be addressed through exit. But if you’re having one-on-ones, the hope is that you’re going in there with this perspective that this employee can thrive, and that you can be a valuable agent in that thriving.

And then once you’re facilitating that conversation, there’s a lot of things that you want to attend to. I mean, obviously you hit some great ones. I mean, these open-ended questions are key. Asking questions and clarification is key. Ultimately, what we want to see happen is the manager not only addressing the tactical needs of the directs, but also their personal needs. And what I mean by personal needs is their need to feel trusted, their need to feel respected, and the need to feel included.

And the best way to address those needs is through empathetic listening, authentic communication, kind and supportive behaviors, appropriate vulnerability. And involving directs in the conversation I think is really, really important.

So when a direct brings to you an issue, your job is not to solve it right that moment. Your job is to help the direct hopefully come to their own great solution through good questions and maybe suggestions. Because then ultimately if it’s their solution, they’re going to be much more bought into it, and then it becomes a greater developmental opportunity for them.

But one of the problems is that when a direct brings a problem to a manager, A, the manager often jumps in too fast. B, when the direct does share a solution, the manager often will correct it. They’ll say, “Oh yeah, but here’s another approach.” And that’s a mistake. Basically, what we want managers to do is to start picking their battles more carefully when it comes to solutioning.

So if there’s a big, meaningful gap between your direct’s idea and yours, fine, intervene. But big and meaningful really is the key. If there’s not a big and meaningful gap, let it go, go with a direct’s idea. It might just work better than anything that you have in mind. And if it doesn’t, well you can provide conversation afterwards to kind of debrief about it. But this is the greatest way of truly helping your direct feel that sense of trust, and respect, and inclusion.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. One of your points of advice is to be flexible. You talk in the book title about it being an art and science. So you really do have to come in with a plan, but then also feel your way through it based on the reactions that you’re getting from your meeting partner. And you also say these meetings need to end well. So explain what you mean by that.

STEVEN ROGELBERG: This is such a common problem in meetings, period. They just don’t seem to have a proper close. And on one-on-ones, it’s extremely problematic. With a few minutes left, the meeting has to stop.

And at that point, everyone does a recap of what was talked about, what was committed to by the various parties. There’s some note-taking that’s being done. You’re identifying topics that you want to be sure to discuss at the next meeting. So it just provides this great sense of closure. And that’s just not happening. So often these meetings just end with the, “We’re out of time,” and that is not at all useful.

It’s also important to try to end the one-on-one on a positive note. Even if the meeting has hit some challenging issues, you can still end on a positive note. So look for that opportunity to express your confidence in the individual, to say, “Thank you for sharing like you did. I understand this is challenging.” So anything you can do to kind of help that direct report leave the meeting feeling inflated as opposed to deflated is helpful.

ALISON BEARD: What about people who have a lot of direct reports, and then a lot of other work responsibilities? Is there a danger that all of their time is tied up in these meetings even though they are incredibly important, but that leaves them with no time to do anything else?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: There’s always that danger. But I would say that if these meetings are actually being done effectively, there’s no loss. I absolutely see it as no matter how busy you are, these one-on-ones yield tremendous value. If you do have so many directs, then you decrease the amount of time you have with each one of them. I am okay with you having 15 minutes a week of awesome focused time. That’s livable.

We can potentially spread them out more over two weeks. So if it’s necessary that we only meet 15 or 20 minutes every other week, so be it. That’s okay, as long as we do it well, and as long as we leverage some of our asynchronous tools, because there’s a host of asynchronous activities we can do to continue to provide support to the direct throughout the week.

Also, some managers have even played with this idea of every other week, the one-on-one is actually done with a senior member of the team, someone who is more experienced. And the other week, the manager does it.

That’s not necessarily going to yield the same real positive outcomes associated with that managerial point of contact, but it’s still helpful. So there’s a variety of different approaches that we can do, but I would also say let’s try to trim the fat out of other activities during our days and weeks. So this is a critical activity. This is like drinking water. So we can’t stop drinking water, but we can stop eating cookies. So let’s see if we have any cookies in our calendar that maybe we could start to decrease, eliminate, or shrink.

ALISON BEARD: So for managers, bosses out there, what is your advice to them about what they can start doing tomorrow to get better at this?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: So basically, the first thing that managers need to know is that this meeting is for their directs. That they’re facilitating, they’re orchestrating, but it’s not their meeting. And so I think that’s the first thing is getting the philosophy firmly implanted into their head.

I mentioned earlier about we want directs to talk the most in these meetings, but managers often still dominate. And so by keep reminding yourself this is meeting for the direct, hopefully that won’t happen. But it’s still hard, by the way, because the research actually shows that talking a lot activates the same areas of your brain that sex and good food do. So we talk a lot because it feels good.

So we want to make sure that we give that gift to our direct. So let’s firmly root ourselves that these meetings are not about micromanaging. It’s about elevating, supporting, energizing, clarifying. The tactics and the logistics, that’s kind of the easy stuff. But I still really stress the art part of this, because you have to pick amongst those choices so that it fits who you are and fits who your directs are.

But ultimately, the tactics, that we can execute, as long as we have firmly embedded what the true goal of these things are. And I’m going to give you just another little silly example, but I personally love this one. If you firmly have in your head that this meeting is for the direct, you’re actually going to ask the direct, “How are you?” In a different way. So when we ask somebody, “How are you?” We know most people just say, “Fine, good.” And because we go on autopilot. So it’s not a good question. But if you firmly embrace that, this meeting is to help the direct and you say, “How are you? But I want you to answer that question on a one to 10 point scale, with 10 being great and one being really bad, where are you?”

And then what happens is the direct is going to give you a six, they’re going to give you a seven, they’re going to give you a five. And now you have something to work with. And then the conversation becomes real and not just automatic. So you can just see how once you’ve ingrained that philosophy, the purpose of these things, the conversations just become substantive, valuable, and meaningful.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. Asking for a scale forces the person being asked to think about why or why not, they’re a 10. So you start to think about what’s holding you back. And what about for employees who have distant or aloof bosses? How do they ensure that they’re getting the one-on-one meetings that they need?

STEVEN ROGELBERG: Yeah. I hate that question. Not because it’s not a great question. But this is one of those things that employees don’t have much power with. They certainly can schedule though, their own one-on-one with their manager. They can certainly say, “Hey, can we meet? I would love to talk to you about and X, Y, Z.” And then if it’s a really positive meeting, then they can say, “Could we do this again in a couple of weeks?” So basically they can start to try to build this cadence by putting themselves out there.

Now, none of this at all assures that the manager does a good job in this, and the manager might not be heavily into facilitating, and they might take it over and dominate. But at least you’re trying. You’re doing what you can do to get these things to happen.

Now, if the meeting is happening, I do want to say that the direct does have a responsibility in all this. It does take two to tango. I build content into the book about what directs can do to make these one-on-ones work. And I’ll highlight just a couple quickly.

One is they have to know what they need. You can’t get what you need unless you know what you need. So you really have to stop, and reflect, and say, “Okay, I’m having this one-on-one. What do I want to get out of this?” And outline it, write it down. Get yourself in the right mental space. It’s analogous to the visualization that athletes do all the time before they compete. So visualize what you need.

Another critical behavior: when you do ask for help from your manager, make sure you do it in a way that you are gathering information that allows you to address the issue.

So basically, when it comes to help seeking, there’s two approaches. There’s dependent help seeking and autonomous help seeking. Dependent help seeking is where you basically are just asking someone for the solution. Autonomous help seeking is when you ask people for guidance, and thoughts, and perspectives. And the research shows that those employees who engage in more autonomous help seeking, they tend to be your best performers. And it’s the exact opposite for dependent help seeking.

So the takeaway this of this for the directs is when you go into that one-on-one, know what you want, know what you need, go in there with some potential ideas and solutions. Seek guidance, but don’t seek quick fixes. Be a collaborative partner, owning the issues and problems, demonstrating to your manager that you are fully engaged in your work and your career.

ALISON BEARD: Great. Well Steven, thank you so much. That’s been super helpful advice for both managers and their employees about how to make one-on-ones better.

STEVEN ROGELBERG:  You’re welcome. I love chatting with you. It was such a pleasure.

ALISON BEARD: That’s Steven Rogelberg, chancellor’s professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He wrote the book Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, as well as the HPR article Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings. And we have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our team, senior producer Mary Dooe, associate producer Hannah Bates, audio product manager Ian Fox, and senior production specialist Rob Eckhardt. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Alison Beard.