What to Talk About and How to Do It
Explore how to prepare and conduct effective one-on-one meetings with your direct reports. Learn strategies to build trust, encourage your team to lead conversations, ask thoughtful questions, and focus on meaningful topics beyond task updates. This lesson guides you in fostering open communication and supporting your team's growth through structured but flexible meeting practices.
We'll cover the following...
With the initial one-on-ones handled by the contracting exercise, you have a clear structure for those initial meetings. However, what about the next meeting and every meeting after that, forever more?
I tend to use some simple repeating patterns for content. First off, it’s essential that you prepare. I have a recurring to-do list item that repeats on the day of each direct report’s one-on-one to remind me to spend some time before the meeting putting the agenda in order. If I haven’t already noted down some items to talk about, I’ll have a ...