Exactly What to Ask in Your Next 1:1 Meetings
Great leaders set their team members up for success. One of the best ways to do this—especially if you’re still in a remote/hybrid work situation—is regular 1:1 meetings with your direct reports.
So, how often is regular? According to research from Google’s Project Oxygen, the highest scoring managers met with their direct reports weekly for 30-60 minutes. If this cadence seems like an increase to what you do now, try it for 60 days (you can even tell your team it’s a trial period) and see how it affects culture and productivity.
To get the most out of these meetings, I have a recommended structure for what the team member can prepare, as well as what you might ask.
For Your Team
Remember, a weekly meeting with individual staff members isn’t about project updates and ongoing work, but rather a discussion about your staff member’s progress and learning. (I recommend the NNTR Update as a way to receive weekly project updates from your direct reports.) To keep the meeting focused, ask for them to provide an agenda in advance.
Share this sample outline (which you can further personalize to your style and organization), and encourage them to use it a template to guide the discussion:
1:1 Agenda
A. Celebrating Progress/Win of the Week
It’s important to celebrate progress, not just outcomes. It’s especially meaningful for them to know their manager is aware of their wins. It also helps to positively frame the rest of the conversation.
B. Strategy/Pipeline
Though the weekly email updates may give you a sense of the overall work that’s happening, it can be helpful for your team members to talk through particularly challenging strategies or donor/client situations with you.
C. Priorities for This Week/Month
This is an opportunity to align priorities for your staff member, so they’re heading in the right direction and focused on their best and highest use of time. They may also need your help to reprioritize their projects when your organization is understaffed or at the busiest times of year.
D. Challenges/Barriers
Understand what challenges they’re having and what barriers they need removed to be successful in their role. If this is part of a weekly agenda, they may feel more comfortable raising concerns and issues than if they have to bring something up to you unexpectedly.
For You
In addition to the agenda above, this is an opportunity for dialogue. Here are my favorite questions to ask—and why.
Ask any team member:
1. How is everything going today?
Note that the question refers to today. Situations can change day-to-day and week-to-week. This helps focus the conversation on the present moment and gives flexibility for them to share about past/future things going on.
2. What needs to be clarified?
Things may feel clear to you as a leader, but not to your staff members. Give them space to ask questions or voice concerns about correspondence or messages they receive or hear around the office.
3. What feedback do you have for me? OR What is one thing I can do to improve your work and your team’s work right now?
This may not be something you ask in every 1:1, but do make a point to ask for feedback more frequently than during performance review time, so you can be the best boss you can be.
4. What new things do you want to learn about at work? OR What progress have you made on your professional development/learning/career goals this month?
These questions speak to professional development, which should be an ongoing focus area with your team members. You may even consider structuring one of your 1:1 meetings monthly specific to professional development.
Ask someone who manages others:
1. How is everything going with people on your team?
As a leader, you want to have a sense of how things are going with the team overall, even the people who don’t directly report to you. The question is phrased such that it’s not always about work outcomes. After all, you care about them as people, too.
2. Who is excelling on your team? Who needs additional support right now?
Get a read from a team lead on their understanding of the team progress.
3. What fires have you put out this week?
It will give you sense of what’s happening at all levels of the organization and a chance to praise their course of action.
Ask a new employee:
1. What’s one thing you have learned this week?
I love asking this question of new employees to both showcase an emphasis on learning culture and to hear what inspires them about their work as they’re onboarding. It can also lead to discussions on topics where they would like to learn more, or questions that they might have otherwise needed prompting to bring up. I make a point to ask this same question for the first several weeks in their new role.
In the job market we’re in, team members are paying special attention to who they work with and for. Creating space for meaningful and productive 1:1 conversations is an important way to build relationships, help staff feel valued, and retain your staff.