One-TO-One Meetings

Top 10 Questions to Ask.

You might feel like your workday is overloaded with meetings and having regular one-to-one meetings with your direct reports is another meeting to jam into an already bloated schedule. If you are tempted to cut them to free up some time, you shouldn’t. Here is why:

Employees want leaders who inspire them, communicate with them frequently, develop them and help them build their strengths.

What Are One-to-One Meetings?

Let’s start by defining they are not, one-to-one meetings are not performance reviews or touch-points about issues. A one-to-one meeting is a dedicated time in your calendar to connect with your direct reports and talk about their priorities, challenges, and professional development. These must be done frequently (at least twice a month) and need to be consistent, follow the same format, and tracked for progress.

Here are a 10 questions to help make one-to-one meetings more effective:

  1. How’s life outside of work?

  2. What are your top priorities this week?

  3. What’s one recent win and one recent situation you wish you handled differently?

  4. Would you like more or less direction from me?

  5. How can I help you to be more successful in your job right now?

  6. How do you find working with the team?

  7. What we can do to improve team culture?

  8. What can we do to improve our meetings?

  9. How helpful is the feedback I am providing you?

  10. What’s something I should consider changing or start doing?