How to run a 1:1 that is worth the hour

The 1:1 is probably the most important recurring meeting in a company, and most of them are wasted. Gallup found that people who have regular, meaningful conversations with their manager are three times more likely to be engaged. The meetings that produce that are not the ones spent reading a status update out loud.

What it is for, and what it is not

It is for the relationship, for coaching, for removing the thing that is in the way, for alignment, for feedback in both directions, and for noticing how someone actually is.

It is not for status, which belongs in whatever tool already tracks the work. It is not the performance review. It is not a monologue. And it is not the place to solve a problem that appeared this morning, because that conversation should have happened this morning.

A shape that works

Both people prepare. The employee owns the agenda: progress against goals, obstacles, questions, updated in a shared document before the meeting. The manager prepares coaching questions rather than answers, one specific piece of recognition, and reads the agenda beforehand.

Open with five minutes of actual human contact. How are you, and then noticing the answer. Then say the quiet part: this is your time, what matters most today.

Give the employee fifteen to twenty minutes and let them lead. Listen more than you speak. The three questions that do most of the work are: tell me more about that, what makes it hard, and what have you already tried.

Then five to ten minutes for your own topics, starting with the specific recognition and the context the person cannot see from where they sit.

Then ten to fifteen minutes on development, which is the part that gets cut first and should not be. What do you want to be better at in six months. Where do you want to be in two or three years. What would help.

Close with five minutes: decisions, actions, owners, written in the shared notes. Book the next one before leaving.

The five ways to ruin it

Rescheduling it, which tells the person exactly where they rank. Turning it into a status meeting. Talking more than about a third of the time. Not doing the things you said you would do, which teaches them that the meeting is theatre. And skipping development every week because this week is busy, which is how a year passes.

The cost is thirty to sixty minutes a week per person. It is the cheapest retention work available.

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