# Why doing 1on1s? - [Your #1 Management Hack: Weekly 1-on-1s -- SaaStr](https://www.saastr.com/1-management-hack-1-1s/) - Ultimately, I’d suggest the following cadence: - **Daily meetings with your co-founder.** We just got together at 6pm every day, and talked for 15 minutes about our days. - **Weekly staff meetings with your entire team.** This meeting should have an agenda, and should be about 60 minutes max. Rather, it’s a forcing function to get the team together and share information, especially cross-functional information. And to make sure folks are working together that need to be. - **Monthly all-hands company meetings.** Most CEOs do this, but not all. At least once or twice a quarter, and ideally monthly in the earlier days, get everyone together for an all-hands meeting. One hack: just use the board package from the last board meeting as the template for your all-hands meeting. - **Weekly or bi-weekly meetings with all your direct reports.** There isn’t a better investment you can make in your VPs than meeting either once a week, or at least, once every 2 weeks. Get it on the calendar. And probably, have it agenda-free. - Do this, and management will get easier, the team will trust you and each other more, and you’ll execute faster. - Why 1on1s? Spotify engineers’ take - [A 101 on 1:1s - Spotify Engineering : Spotify Engineering](https://engineering.atspotify.com/2015/12/a-101-on-11s/) | **_The Goal_** | **_The Purpose_** | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Build trusting relationships between team leads and engineers | So team leads can support the engineers, and the engineers know better the person who cares about them and has their back | | A safe place to discuss sensitive and private issues or provide personal feedback | So engineers can talk about personal life issues that may affect their work, and so team leads can provide specific feedback to the engineer to help them grow their career or get through struggle areas that are holding back their success | | Discuss and work on career development plans | So engineers can set goals for themselves and have a partner who helps them achieve these goals | | Team reflections and engineer happiness | So engineers have a private way to ask for help with team related issues like conflicts with other team members, loss of autonomy or motivation, low morale, boring work and process issues | | Discuss product vision and direction | So engineers can get support from their team lead to affect the product in ways that they believe is important to them and may be at odds with the PO’s vision or the rest of the team’s members | # Run great 1-1 meetings as a manager - The idea behind feedbacks is to gain as much information as possible about Talents' well being and performance. - It should result in measures that improve or preserve various aspects of the Talent's working environment. - 80-20 in a 5min read: [One On One | Andreessen Horowitz](https://a16z.com/one-on-one/) - The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the free-form meeting for all the pressing issues, brilliant ideas and chronic frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email and other less personal and intimate mechanisms. - During the meeting, since it’s the employee’s meeting, the manager should do 10% of the talking and 90% of the listening. - Some questions that I’ve found to be very effective in one-on-ones: - If we could improve in any way, how would we do it? - What’s the No. 1 problem with our organization? Why? - What’s not fun about working here? - Who is really kicking ass in the company? Who do you admire? - If you were me, what changes would you make? - What don’t you like about the product? - What’s the biggest opportunity that we’re missing out on? - What are we not doing that we should be doing? - Are you happy working here? - [Managers, Take Your 1:1s to the Next Level with These 6 Must Reads](https://review.firstround.com/managers-take-your-1-1s-to-the-next-level-with-these-6-must-reads/) -  It requires resisting the easy temptation to see them as a line-items on your managerial checklist, or a chunks of time that clog up your calendar every week. - Hold 30 minute 1:1s each week, but book 45 minutes so you have room if it runs over. 1. Figure out which category your 1:1 falls into, and keep three topics at the ready to avoid status update territory. - **The update:** These are my projects and these are my people and this is how it’s going down. When a 1:1 starts and is clearly an Update, I start listening twice as hard for a nugget of something that we can discuss, investigate, and explore. - **The vent:** Essentially a therapy session. This most often comes in the form of your report being pissed off about something. You just have to listen, not actually do anything. - **The disaster:** They’re freaking out, they’re going to quit, etc. This is the advanced form of the vent. They don’t want a solution, they want to be heard. 2. Make use of a manager’s best tool to ensure that all your 1:1s are a little awkward. - “A coach’s best tool for understanding what’s going on is to ask,” she writes. “Too often, attempts to ‘help’ aren’t actually helpful, even when served with the best of intentions. Your job as a manager isn’t to dole out advice or ‘save the day’ — it’s to empower your report to find the answer herself. - Identify: These questions focus on what really matters for your report and what topics are worth spending more time on. - What’s top of mind for you right now? - What priorities are you thinking about this week? - What’s the best use of our time today? - Understand: These get at the root of the problem and what can be done about it. - What does your ideal outcome look like? - What’s hard for you in getting to that outcome? - What do you really care about? - What do you think is the best course of action? - What’s the worst-case scenario you’re worried about? - Support: These questions zero in on how you can be of greatest service to your report. - How can I help you? - What can I do to make you more successful? - What was the most useful part of our conversation today? - Finally, one more tool from Zhuo’s 1:1 question asking arsenal — but **this one’s aimed at you managers, not your direct reports. Do all of your 1:1s feel a little awkward?** 3. Take a sickness vs. symptoms approach to spot patterns. - “It’s easy to see the symptoms of things — that’s what is actually happening on the surface, but it takes more time to truly understand the underlying cause. Having time set aside with people gives me the opportunity to dig deeper and diagnose the root of a problem. Then we have a shot at fixing it,” - This also works on the organizational level, particularly if, like Milinovich, you’re wearing the CEO’s cap. “I get the chance to aggregate all of this information from all of these meetings, and then patterns start to emerge,” he says. - To jump start those conversations, he relies on **one trusty question at the top of every 1:1 meeting: Where’s your head at?** - The smallest gestures, ticks or even tone of voice from the founders can cause anxiety, insecurity and turmoil within a fledgling startup. Milinovich views 1:1s as a chance to speak candidly about this, and make sure his words and actions come across clearly. 4. Stay specific (yet open-ended) — and don’t forget to bring the empathy. - Whatever a manager says in a 1:1 meeting can leave a lasting impact. You want to add value, not create cognitive drag that slows productivity. 5. Make performance reviews more impactful by keeping careful notes and actually following up in special 1:1s. - Failing to formulate a follow-up plan after performance discussions is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a manager. And if that initial conversation is only the beginning, the rest of the process should play out over the course of the year in the ongoing, regular touchpoints you have with your direct report. - Create a two-sided action plan after a performance review — and turn one of your 1:1s into a monthly career coaching chat. - At the end of your performance review conversation, ask your report to list five to seven concrete actions they want to work on over the next six months and add them into a simple spreadsheet. 6. Add more than a splash of structure to make sure you’re delivering on what you owe your reports. - **Candid, clear expectations:** “Frequent feedback, grounded in data, helps strong performers prepare for success in their next role; it gives those who are struggling an opportunity to improve.” - **Proactive, rather than reactive, performance management:** “Data lets you see into the future. It gives you the ability to understand who is likely to hit or miss quota in advance, so that you can take action — and give that struggling rep an opportunity to catch up before you need to issue a performance improvement plan.” - **Opportunity for mastery:** “According to Daniel Pink’s "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us," mastery is one of the main drivers of our professional lives. Your reps want to feel accomplished in the work that they’re doing. If you’re smart with data, you can deliver feedback and performance conversations that empower your reps to attain mastery in their roles.” - [Working the Weekly 1:1. A better approach for the most… | by Christina Wodtke | Medium](https://cwodtke.medium.com/working-the-weekly-1-1-b80bcf3fbe5f) - The job of a manager is to make yourself as unnecessary as possible. - 0. Before the 1:1, scan the person’s status report. Is there anything there that you should address? A worry, a missed goal, a drop in confidence? 1. G is for Goals. Ask your report, “What would you like to get out of today’s meeting?” Let their topic lead the discussion. 2. R is for Reality (or reflection.) Ask questions about the topic they are struggling with. What facts to they have? What insights? What hunches? What is their reality? - What’s your gut tell you? - How’s that make you feel? - What’s exciting? - What’s scary? - What’s making you sad/angry/happy? - How does your culture or history affect this? - What do you know? (Can be used when someone says, I don’t know”) - What surprises you about this? 3. O is for Options. Have the report come up with their own solutions to the situation. - This can be tough if you are a “fixer” like me. As soon as I hear someone say they have a problem I start thinking of solutions. But this keeps you as the holder of all answers. Sit on your hands, resist the urge, and ask, “Do you have any ideas for what to do about this?” - More possible questions to ask - How can you make your dream happen? - What’s possible? - What if you had a magic wand, and what you wanted just happened? - What’s a new way? - What if there were no barriers? - What’s the ideal? 4. W is for Wrap up. If you have gotten through the issues you need to, you can discuss next steps, i.e. Let me know how it goes, email me that report, or just, looking forward to learning more next week! And do ask, how can I help. Then you can restart the cycle or finish the conversation. - Wrap Up Questions: - How can I help? - What resources are available? - What’s next? # 1-1 meetings in Sales - [11 Questions to Ask Your Employees (& Your Manager) in One on One Meetings - Template - HubSpot](https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/magic-questions-for-your-one-on-one-meetings) - One-on-One Meeting Agenda - 5-10 minutes: Catch-up - Ask about the previous week - Actively listen to the salesperson - 30-40 minutes: Discussion - Review the salesperson's weekly performance - Ask your questions for discussion - Listen to the salesperson's insights, questions, and concerns - 5-10 minutes: Prepare for the upcoming week - Collaborate with the salesperson to set up goals - Write down the action items and steps to achieve the goals - Share the action items with the salesperson - One-on-One Meeting Questions With Employees - "Tell me about last week." - "What do you think the problem is?" - "What about this week? What are your plans and priorities?" - "What's one thing that worked and one thing that didn't, last week?" - "Do you have any feedback for me?" - One-on-One Meeting With Manager - "What should I know about your communication and management style?" - "What are your goals and priorities?" - "What skills should I develop to excel in my job?" - "What do you think I can do to improve (skill/competency)?" # List of questions for 1-on-1s - Really rich list of questions: [VGraupera/1on1-questions: Mega list of 1 on 1 meeting questions compiled from a variety to sources](https://github.com/VGraupera/1on1-questions) - [121 One-on-one questions for managers and employees | Hypercontext](https://hypercontext.com/blog/meetings/121-questions-for-one-on-one-meetings) - [Top 10 Questions Managers are asking during 1:1 Meetings](https://hackernoon.com/top-10-questions-managers-are-asking-during-1-1-meetings-c2c9ee8ad201) - For employees: [96 Questions to ask in One on Ones with a Manager](https://getlighthouse.com/blog/questions-ask-one-on-ones-manager/)