A Compiled Guide For Effective One-on-Ones

tl;dr: Come prepare with an agenda, don’t spend time on status updates and focus on what you can provide to help your manager and how they can provide you with to move forward in your career ladder

Share what’s been most motivating to you.

Managers crave to know what they should be doing to help you do your best work. During your one-on-one, make sure you share what tangibly has been most motivating to you while at the company: What’s been your favorite project? Who was someone you really enjoyed working it? Why was what you were working on so invigorating to you?

Reveal what’s been draining and demotivating to you.

When you do speak up and vocalize tough feedback, look to approach the conversation with care, observation, fallibility, and curiosity. It’s a hard, delicate path to travel. But it’s a worthwhile path if you want your work environment to become better.

Suggest one thing you see as your greatest shortcoming, and what you want to do to actively compensate for it or improve on it.

To help make the conversation easier for you both and to show that you’re actively looking to improve, offer some thoughts yourself about moments you wish you would’ve handled differently. This could come in the form of goals, such as, “I want to find ways to ask more questions when interacting with customers,” or observations of areas you want to strengthen, such as, “I have a tendency to rush some of my projects, and I want to find ways to focus more on quality instead of speed.”

Prepare a few questions to focus on

Here is a non-exhaustive list of questions you can use

• Do you see any untapped potential in the work I’m doing? An area you think I could be pressing a bit harder in or exploring deeper?
• What’s been frustrating or confusing about working with me? Where do you see the greatest opportunity for me to improve?
• What’s the biggest challenge you feel you face as a manager? In what ways can I be helpful in overcoming or facing that challenge?
• What worries you most about the team?
• What are you most proud of the team has accomplished?
• In what ways have I saved you time or made your job easier? What can I be doing to do more of those things?
• Where do you see the team or company a year from now, and what I can do to help make sure we achieve that vision?
• What are the biggest challenges you foresee the team or company facing in the upcoming year?

References

• https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing/blob/master/One-on-Ones.md
• https://signalvnoise.com/svn3/how-to-give-feedback-to-your-boss/
• https://canopy.is/blog/2017/08/28/the-9-questions-that-uncover-the-most-surprising-feedback-from-employees/
• https://ajahne.github.io/blog/leadership/2018/09/29/one-on-one-meeting-dos-and-donts-part1.html
• https://ajahne.github.io/blog/leadership/2018/10/08/one-on-one-meeting-dos-and-donts-part2.html
• https://canopy.is/blog/2018/01/03/7-ways-to-prepare-for-an-effective-one-on-one-meeting-with-your-manager/
• https://canopy.is/blog/2017/08/28/the-9-questions-that-uncover-the-most-surprising-feedback-from-employees/
• https://github.com/ajahne/one-on-ones
• https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/one-on-one-meeting-questions