How to Master One-on-One Meetings

Transcript

Beth Almes:

Hi, leaders, and welcome back to the Leadership 480 podcast. I'm your host, Beth Almes, and today we're going to talk about a topic that's rarely talked about but plays a huge role in your time and effectiveness as a leader, and that's one-on-one meetings. We all have them, or we should, and a lot of times, they're not being used the way they should be, and there's so much more that you can do with them.

So, I'm so excited to introduce our guest today, Dr. Steven Rogelberg. Dr. Rogelberg is a chancellor's professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Adam Grant has called him the world's leading expert on meetings, and you've probably seen his work everywhere in the media. He's even testified before Congress on his research and has won the prestigious Humboldt Award for his research on meetings, so safe to say he knows pretty much everything there is to know about meetings and also has a new book out specifically on our topic today called Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings. Steven, welcome back to the Leadership 480 podcast.

Steven Rogelberg:

Thank you. It is so good to be here. Appreciate it.

Beth Almes:

So, tell me a little bit about your background and what got you interested in studying one-on-one meetings specifically.

Steven Rogelberg:

Sure. So I'm an organizational psychologist; that was my doctorate, and as an organizational psychologist, I am drawn to study topics that are causing pain at work or are not being done effectively; thus, the full potential is not being realized, and that brings me squarely to the topic of meetings and one-on-ones in particular. The one-on-one space is wide open. When I wrote my first book, The Surprising Science of Meetings, that was a book that entered into a crowded space, but it was different because it was about the science.

This one, one-on-ones are very common, but they're not talked about; there's very little science, and really, for the last five years, I have been collecting data from around the world to bring to bear with the hope of making these one-on-ones truly work for leaders and directs.

Beth Almes:

It's so important that you're doing this because I have to tell you, I hear a lot about this from other leaders, and the perception I often get is not that leaders don't value one-on-ones but they're busy. And a lot of times, I see people trying to have workarounds to one-on-ones, like, instead of meeting with all of my direct reports, do I really have to do that? Can I just have an open-door policy?

Can't I just ping them in Teams? So, do you have to really have one-on-one meetings, and what's the value of doing that?

Steven Rogelberg:

Sure. Yes, you really, really, really have to have them. An open door policy is not the same, being available is not the same. There's something incredibly special and unique to tell your directs that, every week, every other week, we have this dedicated time where I am 100% focused on what's on your mind, and I'm committed to doing that because I'm committed to you thriving as an employee. It is a critical signal, it is a critical expression of your values as a leader, and one-on-ones done well are tied to so many important outcomes.

When one-on-ones are done well, employee engagement is higher, greater ability to retain your top talent, just in general thriving, improves, and all those things turn out to be good for you as a leader. One-on-ones can elevate the performance of your directs, and as you know, the better your directs are, the better it makes you look.

And we also have data to show that one-on-ones carried out effectively are critical to inclusion efforts, because this is where you truly see people, one-on-ones elevate team performance, and finally, one-on-ones are really good for your soul. Namely, one of the best predictors of life satisfaction is helping others, and one-on-ones are that perfect opportunity to help others.

Beth Almes:

I love that. And one of the things you said really grabbed my attention. You said this is your time for us to talk about what's on your mind every week. And I'm really curious about how the best leaders position one-on-one meetings, especially in terms of the agenda. So I've heard things from, this is my time to talk to you, I've heard that, this is totally your time, it's whatever's on your mind. So whose meeting is it really?

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. The one-on-one is absolutely a meeting for the direct that's facilitated and orchestrated by the manager; it is not for the manager.

Managers have the power in the relationship, they can meet whenever they want with the direct, they can have the direct fill out forms, asynchronous documents, status, and things like that, can be talked about in team meetings. Managers have tons of opportunities for management. This is the dedicated time for the employee; this is that time that they can count on where they can express themselves and share what's on their minds, and so it's a very different fare than all those other pieces. 

And I can't stress enough that this is a values-based activity. If you survey, talk to leaders about their values, inevitably, they're going to bring values up, such as elevating the human condition, supporting people, and the like, and the one-on-ones are that opportunity to enact these values.

And you could flip that argument on its side. If you don't do these things, think about what that signals to your employees about your values. If you don't do these things, then the employees can experience you as someone who's just about moving widgets, that you don't truly care about who they are and what's really on their minds. 

And so managers just need to recognize that this is not an optional activity; this is where leadership happens, this is where people experience you as a leader. And we all know the adage that people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses, and this is your opportunity to show that you're not a bad boss.

Beth Almes:

So that piece you talked about, that this is your opportunity to show that you really care, how much of this do you dedicate to the personal side of things versus the practical side of things?

What does a typical agenda balance out?

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah, it's going to depend on the relationship you have with that individual and how effectively you've created some psychological safety in that. Depending on those factors, employees may be comfortable sharing certain topics and not others. So let's back up for a second and think about the agenda approaches for these because I think that feeds into that. Would that be useful, you feel?

Beth Almes:

Oh, yeah. That's the heart of it, really; what do you talk about?

Steven Rogelberg:

All right, awesome. So the most common agenda approaches, the first is called the listing approach, where you ask employees to come to the meeting with a list of things they want to talk about, and you tell them that you'll also bring a list. Now, at the meeting itself, the employee list gets completely privileged, and the manager's list might pop in, depending if it fits with what the employee broached. If not, it all moves to the end, and if there's not enough time, so be it, it doesn't matter, because, again, it's not the manager's meeting, it's the direct's meeting.

And so the listing approach could be really good. However, what's critical is the manager prompting the employee to really think about the broad constellation of topics that could be talked about. that we want to make sure the employee knows that they can talk about things that are top of mind, short-term crises, fires to be fought, but they can think more broadly than that. They can think about the team and the organization, and they can think long-term, because we don't want these things to turn into a status update trap, we want the employee to just be thinking bigger than that. 

And so, as long as we cue a lot of the potential topics, and then if the employee is privileging just these fires, which is kind of the human tendency, then the manager could say, you know what? Let's dedicate 10 minutes of every one-on-one to a longer horizon issue, or let's dedicate one out of every four of these to a longer horizon issue. So that's one approach, that's the listing approach.

The second common approach is a core questions approach. In this approach, you identify, and you do this with your direct, four or five core questions that will be asked for a certain period of time, questions such as, what are your biggest challenges right now? How can I best support you? What clarity can I provide that will allow you to thrive? And so, these are very broad based questions, where, again, the direct is able to drive the conversation.

So those are some of the formats, but the most important pieces are that the direct needs to be involved in identifying the topics to be discussed, because that's the essence of it, and we want to make sure we sample broadly. So, in the book, I share around 15 different topics and have sample questions for each, and we ultimately want to keep sampling across those topics to have well-rounded one-on-ones. We don't want these things to get boring and predictable.

And so we sample from this broader range.

I'll add one last thing, and I'll pause is: not only do we want to ask good questions, but we even want to think about the response approach to the questions. Let me give you an example. A common question, which makes complete sense, is to ask, how are you?

Beth Almes:

Right.

Steven Rogelberg:

Reasonable. But sadly, that question doesn't work. When you ask someone, how are you? They typically will respond, I'm fine, pretty good, great, good, whatever. There's not much thought, it's an automatic response. But we could change up on that. So, in the book, I try to talk about some alternative approaches, and here's an example: 

Ask your employee, listen, I'm interested in how you are, I'm thinking about what's going on for you at work or non-work if you'd like. I want to know how you're showing up today, but do it on a 10-point scale, with one being horrible and 10 being great. How are you? Now, you're going to get responses of sevens, of sixes, of fives, and now you have something to work with. Now, you can say, ah, tell me more. What's keeping you from being a 10? What can I do to help you move up that ranking?

So we can be really thoughtful in the questions and the response approaches. And then, once that employee starts to answer, our job is to listen actively, be sure to encourage more reflection, ask excellent questions, because that's addressing their personal needs, the personal needs to feel respected and trusted, and that leads to a very well balanced conversation.

Beth Almes:

Yeah, I think that piece of the how are you is so interesting, because especially when you're talking to your boss, you also have a tendency to, great, things couldn't be better.

Steven Rogelberg:

Right.

Beth Almes:

You don't want to show any weakness, things like that, but I like the more specific questions that maybe open up some of that. I'm curious a little bit about it, too, especially as you get to the personal side, and the way you're talking about structuring some of these, I've heard some things over time about some folks have a real fear of one-on-ones and you write about this in the book, and a lot of times, it's from previous experiences they had-

That it's a chance for the boss to, at any point, say, and what about this project? What's the detailed status on that?

And so, you're like, oh, no, whatever.

Steven Rogelberg:

Right.

Beth Almes:

So how do you set the stage that helps to alleviate [the feeling of], "is this is a good thing...this is not a fearful thing?"

Steven Rogelberg:

So the framing of it, so initially, it's tying it to values. Again, we know there's cynicism if you say, hey, we're trying a new initiative, yet another initiative, but if it's tied to values, then it's experienced differently. So as a manager, you're saying, listen, I am just dedicated to your success and thriving, and a key mechanism to help me do that effectively is going to be the one-on-one meeting, and here's what I'm thinking with regard to the one-on-one meeting, and we'll give it a go, but then I'm going to look to you to give me feedback to how we can keep making these things better and better and better, and so that they really meet your needs. And so, the framing is one key piece of this.

Then it's carrying it out in a way that honors that framing, that you are truly asking their opinions, you are engaging with them on their terms, you're demonstrating the behaviors that you introduced in that initial frame. And then, it's the close, it's following up, it's doing the things that you said that you were going to do. And so, if you've offered to provide help around X, you need to do that. And as you do those things, that just keeps sending the signals appropriately, so this is really valuable time for the direct. And the other thing that you might, early on, you might have to be a little bit vulnerable in the meeting.

So, that's one of the mechanisms for creating safety. I'm not saying at all that you should be unloading your personal feelings on your direct. But you can be somewhat appropriately vulnerable, and that helps set the stage for safety as well.

And so, those are the key pieces, the framing, in the process, that you're asking genuine questions and you're doing what you say. And I'll throw one other thing in there, which is a common mistake in one-on-ones, is that we'll often ask if the employee has an issue. A good manager behavior is to say, what are your thoughts on the best way to handle the situation? That's excellent. But the common problem is, when the employee says, oh, I think X, or, I'm considering X, that the manager will quickly veto it, veto it, and replace it with the idea they were thinking of.

Beth Almes:

Interesting.

Steven Rogelberg:

And that is a big problem, that undermines the employee. The key behavior and this is something that I talk about and share some interesting research around, is managers need to look at what employees suggest. If there is not a big and meaningful gap between what you're thinking and they're thinking, just let it go. Let it go because, obviously, if it's their solution, they're going to be much more invested in making it work and persevering in the face of obstacles.

Now, if the gap is big and meaningful, then certainly share your perspective, but the bottom line is pick your battles, and managers have a hard time with that. They have a hard time picking their battles, they tend to make everything a battle that they think that they can fix. And so, that's another behavior to be aware of when you ask people their opinions on how to solve things, and you're willing to go with it, that's another one of those great signals that this meeting is for them.

And oh, I'll throw one last thing out, and then I'll take a pause, but I want to give you another example: cancellations. So these things, a manager really should never cancel these. When a manager cancels a one-on-one, it sends a really bad signal. It sends a signal that, yeah, I really care about you unless more important things come up.

And that's not helpful. So if you have to cancel because stuff does come up, reschedule earlier, not later, earlier, and even if it's just for five or 10 minutes, keep that predictable rhythm and cadence, and that's a really positive signal. So if a manager's doing all of these things, the value of these one-on-ones just keeps improving over time, and you get so much from them.

Beth Almes:

Now, I'm curious about, as you were talking about that solution finding together, so as you're working through problems, I was wondering about the different types of roles and how one-on-ones play out in those. So, for example, very common in certain professional jobs that you might have a one-on-one with your direct manager. In other jobs, I think of a lot of folks in healthcare, if they're nurses or if there are those in manufacturing or other industries—I don't know that I've heard that the one-on-one is as common.

Especially, when you're talking about things like problem-solving. So, do you see this play out in every type of role?

Steven Rogelberg:

Such a great comment and question. So this is something I added to the book really towards the latter side 'cause I realized I hadn't talked about it. We certainly know that one-on-ones are appropriate, important, for more white-collar-oriented positions. 

And so, what I talked about in the book, though, is why would we expect all these benefits of truly seeing someone and supporting them. Why would that not extend to all jobs? Why would we think that it's just white-collar? And so, I lay out what we know from the literature, and basically, the bottom line is, while the cadence of these might be different, depending on the job type, everyone benefits from it.

And this is not rocket science. Think about the human condition. As humans, we all want to feel seen at times. We all appreciate when people take an interest in who we are and our problems and concerns. That's not isolated to people who are in white-collar types of roles, that is just being a human.

Especially, when you're talking about things like problem-solving, amount of time, and topics might differ. In fact, one of the things that I talk about is this notion that even parents should be having one-on-ones with their kids.

Now, I'm not talking about rigid calendar holds, although if you want to do that, you can.

But this dedicated time where you sit down with your child, without thinking about other things, and just really probe what's on their minds. What an amazing tool for building a relationship. And so, this same dynamic can play out in lots of different contexts.

Beth Almes:

Car rides are great for that, aren't they? Where you're chatting with someone who's in the car with you. You're driving, but you're not necessarily focused on your phone or anything else.

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. As long as it's genuine and you're asking the questions where you're just trying to learn and not imposing, oh, you need to unload the dishwasher when you get home.

It's just really understanding: How are things really going at school? What are you most finding frustrating? What are you enjoying the most, and why? These are just great questions that elevate the other party. And so, everyone benefits with having these opportunities—and I'm going to use this phrase again because I just think it works so well—to be seen.

Beth Almes:

I'm curious, then, you brought up cadence, and I'm sensitive to the fact that I know a lot of leaders have busy schedules. We can't be in one-on-one meetings all the time, and we don't want to cancel them if possible, so what do you find to be a common cadence that works and gives that engagement level you're looking for without overloading your calendar?

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah, right. We have data on this, and the most gains in employee engagement were associated with a weekly cadence and the biweekly next. You don't see the same gains with a monthly cadence, although a monthly is better than nothing. 

But ultimately, the value of these one-on-ones increases when there's great continuity and predictability. In fact, we have some anecdotal data to suggest that when they are weekly, to a lesser extent, biweekly, that people, employees, basically save their issues for this and tend to interrupt the manager less throughout the week.

And so, these things can actually start to save the manager time, especially as these one-on-ones, as they eliminate roadblocks, create more alignment, re-work time decreases. These one-on-ones help your top talent stay, that saves you time. So there's lots of things that save time.

Circling back to your question also more directly, we also have data that asks people, what's your desired cadence? How many of these would you want to have? And clearly, the data was completely clear that people preferred weekly. And one of the things that was a kick was that we looked at their preferences, and we looked at it by job level, and the assumption was that those people who were more junior, that they would desire the most of these, that aligns with those generational stereotypes that we want feedback.

And we didn't see that.

More senior-level leaders wanted the most one-on-ones, and if you stop and reflect, that's actually not much of a surprise. They know how to face time with their boss can be incredibly important, and having that one-on-one time. And so, they were highly desirous of them.

Beth Almes:

I just want to highlight that, for the listeners, that this can really save you time. I hadn't thought about it in that perspective, but when people save their issues because they know you're going to have a chance to talk this through, less pinging because nobody really wants to be that person to constantly pinging their boss with every little thing, and if you just say, I'm going to collect this till I have some time, it can really put you in a better position to actually deal with things. I think that's so helpful.

I'm curious, too, about your thoughts on note-taking during meetings. So, I can see some pros and cons of it can be great to be clear on commitments. I can also see that it takes away from the value of the conversation if somebody's taking notes, that it's like you're not fully paying attention. What are your thoughts?

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah, so note-taking was identified as an important behavior underlying success of these. The note-taking approach that received the highest ratings was old school pen and paper note-taking.

Beth Almes:

Really?

Steven Rogelberg:

That when a manager is jotting it down in a little journal book, like the key notes, employees saw that behavior as just being so sincere and dialed in.

Beth Almes:

Interesting.

Steven Rogelberg:

So note-taking is a requirement. It is not extensive note-taking, but you absolutely need to do note-taking because the value of one-on-ones increases to the extent that you make connections with past one-on-ones.

One of the great practices that a leader could do at the start of a one-on-one is to basically say, hey, I know you, in the last one-on-one, you said you were going to try X. How did that go? So making those connections and notes allow us to do that. And then, the modality is that the old school was most well received.

Beth Almes:

That's fascinating. It makes good sense because it also means that you're not behind your laptop screen. And I think there's always that fear of, are you taking notes or are you writing an email to someone else and doing something else secretly?

Steven Rogelberg:

Right.

Beth Almes:

Have you seen anyone start to use AI note-taking in their one-on-ones as part of a way to do that, and is it as effective?

Steven Rogelberg:

Yes, I have seen it, and no, I do not believe it's effective because we're not looking for a complete accounting of what went on.

We just want, in the end, just what are the keynotes that emerge from it. And I want the human brain to synthesize it and think about it because we need to internalize it. And so, notes, we know this from the research, that when students take notes with their hand, they tend to have greater retention. And so, I love AI, but not for this purpose.

Beth Almes:

So we've mostly been talking about this from the leader's perspective: how do I do a better job of this with my direct reports? But most of us report then to mid-level leaders or senior leaders who are also incredibly busy, and as you noted, you still want that one-on-one time.

When you think about your own one-on-one with your own manager, is there anything you think people can do differently or change their approach to say, hey, I know you're busy, but I need this time?

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah, so I do spend time in the book talking about what the direct should do to make these things truly work, and I frame it as it does take two to tango. There's two parties and each party has responsibilities.

Now, the leader has the most responsibilities, but the direct does, too.

The first most important thing is the direct needs to know what they need to know. So before that meeting starts, they actually have to truly think, they have to think about here's what I'm hoping to get out of this one-on-one, and a lot of people don't do that. They don't actually stop and reflect, but you can't get what you need unless you know what you need. And so, that deep reflection before the one-on-one is critical.

Other behaviors that they need to do is obviously ask for help when they need to ask for help, but do it in an autonomous help-seeking way as opposed to a dependent health-seeking way. Dependent help-seeking is about just someone giving you an answer, autonomous help-seeking is someone giving you information and guidance so that you can solve the problem, and employees who engage in more autonomous help-seeking tend to be much better performers. 

So we need to engage in that autonomous help-seeking, we need to be willing to ask for feedback, receive feedback well, express gratitude, not get defensive. So there's lots of different things. We might have to work harder on rapport building if your manager is kind of awkward in that.

So there's just things that the direct needs to be dialed into to make sure the conversation truly works.

Beth Almes:

So, as we think a little bit about those more senior leaders, I was intrigued by a concept in your book you talked about about the skip-level one-on-ones.

Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah, I love that.

Beth Almes:

I've heard some organizations do them, or some do them in a group setting.

But I haven't heard a ton about skip-level one-on-ones. I could see the value, but also, there's probably some panic around for the leader who's in between, are you micromanaging my team? Is this a good thing? So, tell me a little bit about your take on the value of skip-level one-on-ones.

Steven Rogelberg:

Skip-level one-on-ones could absolutely be a fantastic approach for helping employees feel part of something bigger than just themselves and their team, and the cadence of these things is much further apart than a one-on-one. 

So, if you're a vice president and you meet with the directs of your directs every quarter, every six months, that's not going to be a heavy lift. But just think about it for yourself. Think about this notion of your boss's boss taking an interest in you and sharing information.

It's just another one of those signals that brings great comfort and strength. But as I talk about extensively in that chapter is that the goal is not to undermine the manager, so issues around the manager actually might arise, but that's not the goal of it in any way. But I'll tell you if the employee does bring issues about their manager forward, good for them.

And I'm sure that's going to make the skip-level leader really happy, 'cause it gives them something maybe to coach their directs on. But ultimately, these skip levels are about sharing information, sharing things at a broader organizational level, it could be about asking employees' opinions about something the senior leader is thinking about, because they can have a very valuable perspective.

So it's a short conversation, it definitely feels a little different than the one-on-one because there's not the same relationship, and there's more formal distance between them, but it's still that opportunity for that employee to see that the whole organization at all levels cares, and takes an interest in them, and is willing to have contact. 

And when we think about the pandemic and things that were lost, one of the things that was lost was that deep connectivity. We've gotten into perhaps some difficult relationships with work in that it's very transactional, and especially with us not going in. And so, these one-on-ones, these skip-level one-on-ones, these are just opportunities to have it not seem as transactional, and to build more commitment to the organization and its goals, to address questions and clarify objectives.

The load for leaders to have skip levels is not hard when it's just quarterly or every six months. And if you're super senior and have a ton of different people, I love this one practice that a leader of Bank of America did, where, basically, every month, she put out a sign-up and said, okay, I want to do a breakfast, here are the six slots, sign up, and we'll have another one next month.

And she just kept doing that every month, and a different six people would sign up, and it was a great way of continuing to make contact. So we could do skip levels in groups, we don't get the same benefits, but they can be done that way. But one-on-ones can never be in groups.

Beth Almes:

Yeah, I wonder if that helps in many ways with the struggles companies have had with if they don't bring people back to work, or they feel like they have to but they're worried about their culture, if that can really be a way to help solve some of those challenges that the company's lost.

Steven Rogelberg:

Oh, I love it. That's a great. Yeah, these are culture building activities. This is where you really are getting people bought in to something bigger than just their everyday jobs, it is absolutely the foundation of culture. And one of the things that I really love, at the end of the book, I just get into how to reduce other meeting time.

Because I know everyone is flooded with meetings, so the one-on-one meeting is the one meeting that should not be an email, but there might be other meetings that should be emails.

And so, I walk through that as well. I really provide a lot of guidance on how to find additional time so you can invest it more properly in these activities.

Beth Almes:

So, the last question I'll ask you, because we want to be sensitive to time, we all know everyone's busy, that's part of the whole thing here.

But can you share with me a moment of leadership that really changed your life, for good, for bad, to say, I will never do that, or I'm inspired?

Steven Rogelberg:

So, I guess there's two things that come to mind. One was, when I first started, I was really bad at allowing dissent to occur in meetings. I really weighed harmony over everything, and that was a failing as a leader. And I realized that I need to create the conditions of constructive dissent, and that doesn't have to undermine harmony. 

In fact, it actually can lead to improved harmony when done well. So, this notion of leading a team where disagreement is common, but respectful, was something I had to really work on, and it took me a little time. So that would be one thing.

And then, another thing was probably when we had an employee who sadly took his life, and just how to experience that with the entire team. And it really helped me understand the importance of me being appropriately vulnerable, and really recognizing how everyone experiences really challenging, difficult events differently, and just managing the range of emotions and experiences around that. So, those are two critical incidents that have definitely stayed with me.

Beth Almes:

Oh, yeah. The value of the relationships that go into both of those scenarios, you've got to have great relationships coming into it to do those well.

Thank you so much for your time today. I think all of our leaders will benefit from coming out and doing their own one-on-one meetings better than ever before, so we appreciate you joining us.

Steven Rogelberg:

It's such my pleasure, and definitely encourage folks to check out my website stevenrogelberg.com because I have a ton of resources on there. Obviously, we have book-buying information too, but I do want to say all my royalties from the book are all being donated to the American Cancer Society, so buy the book if you want to learn about one-on-ones.

Or if you want to help eradicate cancer.

Beth Almes:

I absolutely do. So thank you so much for your time, and leaders can check out those additional resources in the book. And we want to thank all of our leaders for listening, taking part of their 480 minutes to be with us today, and remember to make every moment of leadership count.