The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that is a meeting between a team member and their manager. 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.

1:1 for Team Members:

• If you are a team member, how do you get feedback from your manager on an exciting but only 20% formed idea that you’re not sure is relevant, without sounding like a fool? How do you point out that a colleague you do not know how to work with is blocking your progress without throwing them under the bus? How do you get help when you love your job but your personal life is melting down? Through a status report? On email? Yammer? Asana? Really? For these and other important areas of discussions, one-on-ones can be essential.
• Book your 1:1 with your manager on a time and day that works for both of you every week. Confirm this with your manager. Ideally book 30 minutes and if needed book up to 1 hour.
• Make sure you have an agenda, run it buy your manager prior to the call and add it to the google Calendar invite here’s an example: -Top 3 priorities of the week -Main Blockers (what’s your suggestion?) -Can we consider this new process? -Day off
• Always come prepared to the 1:1, there will always be room for improvement, feedback or shout outs.
• Feel comfortable and keep in mind you can always speak honestly, openly and candidly.

1:1 for Managers

• While it’s not the manager’s job to set the agenda or do the talking, the manager should try to draw the key issues out of the team member. The more introverted the team member, the more important this becomes.
• Some questions that are found to be very effective in one-on-ones:
• If we could improve in any way, how would we do it?
• What’s the number-one problem with our organization? Why?
• What’s not fun about working here?
• Who is really kicking ass in the company?
• Whom 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?
• In the end, the most important thing is that the best ideas, the biggest problems, and the most intense employee life issues make their way to the people who can deal with them. One-on-ones are a time-tested way to do that, but if you have a better one, go ahead with your bad self.