Getting the Most Out of 1:1s
Managers are expected to hold regular 1:1s with their report. Here are some guidelines for what’s required of you and for getting the most out of those meetings.
Benefits of 1:1s
1:1s are a great performance management mechanism for providing consistent feedback to your report, increasing their engagement, uncovering any blockages in their work, and fostering their professional development. But employees and managers reap different benefits from reliable 1:1s.
Employees receive regular feedback, reducing the possibility that their overall performance will degrade to an unrecoverable place. If they’re doing work that’s below standards, you can catch it and inform them early while giving specific guidance on how to recover.
Employees also receive the benefit of psychological safety when you give them regular feedback on their work and overall performance. “No news is good news” works for some people, but not most. 1:1s are an opportunity to reassure your report that they have all the information they need about their work.
As a manager, you also benefit from 1:1s. You save time and agony when you address performance lags early. You build trust with your report, which allows for upward feedback. You hear directly from your report what their concerns are, whether or not they’re happy, and how you can improve in your role as their manager.
Cadence
New employees should have frequent check-ins. Plan on a 30-60 minute 1:1 every week for their first few months. If they are progressing as expected, you can decrease to a schedule that works for you and your report. L1-L2s may need more time than someone hired in at the Senior level. Use your judgment, discuss with your report, and loop in your manager peers or People Ops if you need guidance. Once a month is a pretty typical 1:1 cadence for a report who’s well onboarded and performing as expected.
Content
Prepare ahead of time. There’s no need to draft a rigid agenda for every 1:1, but do jot down some talking points ahead of each meeting. Invite your report to add to the agenda, so your meetings are not entirely manager-driven. An easy way to do this is for both of you to add bullets in the comments of your recurring Basecamp events.
1:1s are not (just) status updates. We use automatic check-ins for status updates, so treat 1:1s as an opportunity to have more in-depth conversations. Dive into a specific Support case or PR that went particularly well or badly. Discuss your report’s career progression and whether or not they’re on track.
Sample questions. In recurring 1:1s, you should focus on developing your relationship with your report, celebrating successes, and resolving problems.
- How did the past [few weeks] go?
- What’s going well? Anything blocking you that I can help with?
- What’s a [design/technical] choice you made this week that we can talk through?
This last question can be particularly important for someone’s development at 37signals. Judgment is a weighty piece of our performance framework, no matter the role. That means we expect people to make prudent decisions about work that needs to be done and the steps needed to execute it. As a leader, part of your job is instilling good judgment in your report. One way to do that is to review the decision making process on a consistent basis. Practice. You can even explain certain choices you’ve made and the mental steps you took to reach & execute them. That provides valuable context that then informs their own judgment.
On occasion, you should have growth conversations with your report. Help them reflect on areas where they’d like to develop their skills or have a different impact on the team and company.
- Are there areas you would like to develop further? What can I do to help you get there?
- What part of your job are you enjoying the most? What’s energizing you?
Documentation
You don’t need to take copious notes during your 1:1s. However if there are important takeaways that come out of them that you know you’d like to refer back to, jot them down and store them privately or in your team’s People Ops project (where your report’s performance reviews are stored).
Likewise if you and your report come to any agreement on steps toward a goal or specific action items they need to achieve to improve their performance, document those and share them with your report. It’ll reduce misunderstandings, and you’ll create a shared document that you can both rely on as they progress to their goals.