Story Driven 1:1s: How to Build Heroes Across Your Organization
Whether you are the CEO or a front-line manager, 1:1s are essential for getting the best work out of the folks who directly report to you. And if you manage managers, it’s their job to do the same with the people who they oversee.
Here is a brief overview of what has worked best for my clients and their organizations more broadly when having manager 1:1s.
Find the right cadence.
The best cadence my clients have found for continuity, momentum, and performance is meeting every week for 30 minutes. This model presupposes a 30 minute arc and you can adjust accordingly if you prefer longer meetings.
Let your goals guide you.
Revisit your report’s big picture organizational and career goals at least once per year, preferably quarterly. And then keep them in mind. Always. Goals aren’t something that you stick in an HR system somewhere. They’re the key to creating great stories—for yourself, your organization, and everyone you work with.
Keep status in status reports.
A lot of people find 1:1s (and team meetings, more broadly) painful because they involve status updates. There is no need to use important time to read off a list. Keep your status updates to asynchronous communication and use your 1:1s to talk about qualitative, substantial, impactful things that can help you meet your goals.
Give continuous feedback outside of your 1:1s.
Don’t save tough feedback for your 1:1 meetings. This is your report’s time not yours. Give feedback often. So often that you don’t need to save it all up for these meetings. (for more on that, I recommend reading Kim Scott’s Radical Candor and taking a lot of what she says with a grain of salt because context is everything.)
You are not the hero.
There is plenty of time to be a hero as a leader. In fact, I’m writing an entire book about how to be a hero as a leader. This is not that time. In your 1:1s, the person you manage is the hero, not you.
You are the Obi-Wan Kenobi to their Luke Skywalker, the Giles to their Buffy, the Morpheus to their Neo.
You set the vision. And the big picture goals. They slay the vampires. (If you haven’t set either vision or goals, stop right now. Call me. Because these meetings will be pointless.)
Your goal with 1:1s is to make sure that people have the tools they need to tell you how they’re going to help you get to where you need to go.
Mission by mission. Episode by Episode. Scene by scene.
1:1s have an arc.
This is a slithering framework. Make it your own.
Connect (a few minutes)
Connecting is as important as getting down to business and will ultimately make the business stuff much, much more effective.
Don’t skip this part! There’s neuroscience behind why this is important for performance. Also, you’re all humans. Do this. It’s important.
But also don’t spend the entire meeting gabbing, either. At that point, you’re impeding performance. If you have a lot to catch up on, set another time to hang out. Coffee. Meals. Conferences. Off-sites. All are great ways to connect more deeply 1:1 or with your team or organization more broadly.
Outcome (a minute or so)
Ask them what they want to get out of the 1:1. Ideally it’s something like: I want to vent, I want to figure out what to do about x person, I’m having x problem (prioritizing, focusing on work, getting good feedback, etc.) - you may have to infer what kind of session it will be based on their mood / body language / how they start.
Current state (next several minutes)
Where are they now? What’s going on? What have they tried?
Challenges (next several minutes)
Help them untangle stories they’re making up from what’s actually true / solvable / a workable problem related to what they want to discuss.
Ask what questions vs. why questions. They’re easier to answer and will get you more concrete results.
Once more with feeling. Feelings happen. Especially at work. Let them happen. They make stories better. And studies show that they improve performance at work.
Don’t offer solutions even though you’re probably thinking of many based on your experience!
Turning point (mid-way)
Around half-way through your meeting, your report should be starting to gain some clarity and moving into solution mode.
If this doesn’t happen, try to move the conversation there. Do this by asking questions like “what are some ideas you have for how to solve this” rather than “have you tried X? Y?” Get them to do the work! They’ll feel better. And you’ll be less exhausted.
If they’re really stuck, then ask if you can offer a solution. Then invite them to tell you why your solution is terrible so that they can make it their own. Forget that step and risk them subconsciously fighting you on it after the meeting and finding out a week later that they never implemented your solution.
Resolution (last 5-ish minutes - leave time for this!)
Circle back to the thing they wanted to work on and see how they feel and if they have actionable next steps.
You ask them “what are your action items? What’s your plan of attack?” Don’t tell them what to do. They’re adults. They tell you.
Make sure you understand what your action items are, if any.
Be clear on any specific dates (e.g. update in next 1:1).
Establish accountability for both. Find out if there’s anything they need in order to stick to what they say they’re going to do. Ultimately, you need them to own their actions. You’re not their teacher. You’re not their task master. You are enabling them to do great work that will help you ultimately realize your vision and reach your shared goals.
The secret to all of this is to get the work off of your plate and onto them so they do all the work for you and come to you when they need help. This will help you conserve energy to do the rest of your job (where you get to be the hero!). And this will energize the other person to be the hero they need to be to do their best work.
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Big thanks to my superhero client extraordinaire, Emily Davis, Chief Product Officer at Skillcrush, for putting the outline for this together. And a bigger thanks for all of my clients for helping me to refine this over the years, making it their own, being super, and enabling everyone they work with to be even more super.
