927: Fixing One-on-One Meetings Improves (almost) Everything with Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Pete Mockaitis

Steven, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Thank you. It’s really great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m stoked to be chatting about your book Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings. But first, I have to hear from you, can you think of a particularly transformational or consequential one-on-one meeting in your own life and what made it so special?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Yeah, it was really the experience of leading one with one of my directs, and just seeing how it impacted her. So, she came into the one-on-one in a really bad place, and then, by the end of it, she was in a different place. She was kind of charged up to address the challenges that she was confronting, and I was just grateful. It feels great to help one of your directs who is struggling.

Pete Mockaitis

Totally. And can you tell us, broadly speaking, and not just in your own experience there but in your research and across workplaces, really what’s at stake if we have one-on-one meetings go amazingly versus okay?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Well, the research is clear and powerful. Leaders who do one-on-one meetings well, the gains are tremendous. We see it positively affecting employee experience, employee engagement, even retention of your top talent. From a team perspective, there’s a strong linkage between good one-on-ones and team performance, inclusion efforts are enhanced, and the sweet composite of all this is, is that this is really good for the manager. Because as your people, and as the team thrives, it only reflects well on you. So, one-on-ones are one of these activities that everyone benefits from.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, as you did your research, tell me, did anything really surprised you, or strike you, or seem shocking?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I thought it was really interesting that when we surveyed employees about how often they’d want a one-on-one meeting with their manager, well, let me throw it back at you, Pete. What do you think? What do you think the typical responses? How often do people want one-on-ones with their manager?

Pete Mockaitis

More than they’re getting is the theme, I would say.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

That’s a really good response. So, the typical response was, “Weekly.” And what was so interesting is that more senior employees actually desired even more one-on-ones than more junior employees. So, counter to generational stereotypes, we see a reverse of that.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, that’s right. That is a great reversal of generational stereotypes

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I think that everyone wants to be seen, and one-on-one meetings are that opportunity to be seen. And I think with the senior-level folks, they know with their experience how critical it is to have this contact with their manager that really focuses on success, alignment, removing barriers and obstacles, so they get it. And because they get it, they want it.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, they know it matters and they want it all the more. So, that’s what we want. Well, what are we getting?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Well, the cadence out there is very variable, some managers are meeting with their people once a week. Many others are doing it once a month. That’s very common. Still, others do it quarterly, which is basically a no-meeting cadence. But more concerning is our research generally shows that around 50% of one-on-ones are rated sub-optimally, so we’re not realizing their full potential.

And then, Pete, the thing that’s crazy is that if you surveyed these two individuals leaving the meeting room, the manager thinks it went much better than the direct. They seem to have a little bit of a blind spot.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that’s quite a confluence of forces, a perfect storm here. People want lots of one-on-one meetings, they’re not getting those one-on-one meetings. When they happen, they’re usually disappointing, and yet, the manager thinks that things are going just fine and dandy all at the same time.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Exactly. Pete, you literally just nailed why I wrote this book, it was to address that statement exactly.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, lay it on us then, Steven, if we are hurting on this dimension, what are the tops things we can do to improve it?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, some of the common mistakes is people don’t prepare, they don’t try to find this connective tissue between one-on-ones, and that’s really the wonderful value of one-on-ones is that you can create this connective tissue and to build momentum.

They’re not doing them at the right cadence. They are making the meeting more about the manager and less about the direct. They can’t help themselves. They talk more than the direct, which is one of the greatest predictors of one-on-one ineffectiveness. They don’t have a plan of action. They don’t involve the direct in creating that plan of action. They don’t kind of create an environment that’s psychologically safe, so the directs don’t come in there and actually share what’s important to them. They don’t, at the end of the one-on-one, recap what was agreed upon. And they don’t follow through on the various commitments.

So, those are some of the plagues that happen, but there are so many more. We could go into cancellations, for example. One of the biggest mistakes that managers do is they cancel these one-on-ones frequently. And think about what a signal that is to your employees, that basically you have this activity that’s about them, but if something else comes up that’s pressing, you cancel. You immediately lower the importance of your employees.

And what we found in the research is a much better practice is if you have to cancel, move up the meeting as opposed to move it back even if you only meet with that person for 10 minutes. But that type of a behavior, as opposed to being a negative signal, it becomes a positive signal, that no matter what, you’re going to find that time for your people.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s huge. And it’s so funny because it does happen all the time, I’ve seen it, and I’ve been guilty, I guess, on both sides. And it’s so interesting, I think the manager’s perspective is maybe something like, “Ah, well, this is something within my control, my people. I have some flexibility and leeway to move this around,” versus, “Super big deal client. That? Oh, no, I have to bend over backwards and deal with them, pronto. Like, I have no choice in that matter,” versus this meeting with my people, “Hey, man, we’re cool. Yeah, we’ll could shift that around. No problem.”

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

But that’s not so cool.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

It’s not. It’s one of those things. People go through their workdays, they’re looking at signals, signals about their values, signals of their importance, signals about who their manager really is, and we have to be careful. Like, sometimes we say one thing but our signals and behavior suggests something very different.

And so, one of the things I really get into in the book is that this is not an optional activity. This is a core requirement of leadership, and the alternative title for the book that I played with is “This is the one meeting that should not be an email,” because this is a stage for leadership. This is where leadership really happens.

Now, we’ve all heard the old adage that people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. And one-on-ones are this opportunity to display awesome leadership, to foster these meaningful relationships with your people, to help them on their path and on their journey. And by doing so, all boats are raised.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Now, previously, you used the term connective tissue. Just to make sure we don’t lose that, what precisely does that mean?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, basically, one-on-ones really move to the next level when each one-on-one kind of connects with a past one-on-one. So, let’s say that you and I are having a one-on-one, Pete, and as part of it, it emerges that you are struggling with conflict management types of tasks, that it really brings you down, it drains you, it just takes this really big toll. So, we spend some time talking about it, we share some resources, what have you.

Well, at our next one-on-one, if I start the one-on-one by saying, “Hey, Pete, I know you’re working on some of the conflict management stuff. How’s that been going for you?” that conveys that I’ve been listening, that I care, that I’m tracking these things. So, to the extent that the story, the story of your career, the story of your success continues, it just becomes a much more powerful conversation. It’s like imagine a relationship with a friend who completely forgets everything that you both talked about last time. That friendship would not thrive.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Steven, it seems like a huge part of this value and goodness can be unlocked simply by deciding, “Okay, this is a priority. I’m going to make the time. I’m not going to shift the meetings around. I’m going to take the time to thoughtfully prepare. I’m going to listen.” So, let’s say that someone is committed, they’ve got the will. What are some of the practices that even then they might overlook?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, one of the things is that I found it pretty surprising. When we were looking at some of the design factors around these, and I wasn’t sure about the importance of an agenda for one-on-ones. And it only happens around 50% of the time, but what the research showed is that when there was an agenda, but a lightweight agenda, those one-on-ones seem to excel much greater.

And so, when we think about what that agenda could look like, I want to share a couple approaches that seem to be most well received. One is the listing approach where you tell your direct, “Come to the one-on-one with a list of topics that you want to talk about. I’ll create a list as well but, please, know my list is secondary. I’m only going to bring up my list if it measures with yours or if we have time.”

“Also, when you’re creating your list, I want you to think big, small, long term, short term, you, your team, your organization,” because we want the employee to do a broader scale when they’re creating their list. So, that’s the listing approach, and that would be a great thing for a manager to facilitate. And the more you involve the direct in creating this process, the better.

The second approach is called the core-question approach, and this is where, with your direct, you basically identify four or five core questions that form the foundation of the one-on-one. For example, “What obstacles are you experiencing and how can I help you?” So, you create these questions together, and then the direct has the ability to really guide the meeting in lots of different ways.

Now, in both of these approaches, there’s a few things to keep in mind. One is we don’t want these meetings to turn into a status update, fall into a status update trap where all we talk about is, “What’s going on in that project? What’s going on in that project? What’s going on in that project?” because that is not truly a meeting for the direct. So, therefore, we want to make sure that we rotate questions over time.

It might be the case that we even dedicate certain amounts of time each one of these one-on-ones for a longer horizon career-based discussion. That’s totally fine. So, we want to make sure we’re flexible. We want to ask good questions but we even want to think about the response options associated with them, and let me give you an example, and maybe this might also fall into your category of surprise.

So, a very common question is, “How are you?” Well, it sounds like a reasonably good question. Sadly, it doesn’t work. When you ask someone “How are you?” they typically have automatic responses, “I’m fine,” “Pretty good,” “Great.” It doesn’t really tell you much. But if we changed the response options, if we asked the individual, “I’m interested in how you are but I want you to let me know, on a scale from one to ten, with one being horrible, ten being great, how are you showing up today?”

Now, you get responses of fives, of sixes, of sevens. Now, you have something to work with. You can explore it. You can understand it. So, we need to think about these questions. We want to have really interesting, important, relevant questions that your direct is really strongly informing. And then it’s about good facilitation, good engagement, asking lots of questions, “Tell me more about this,” “What are your thoughts about it?” because we, ultimately, want to give the gift of communication to the direct.

But I will say this and then I’ll pause, is that it is hard. The research has shown that people talk a lot because it activates the same parts of the brain as good food. So, we talk a lot because it feels kind of good, and we need to give that gift to someone else, namely the direct, for this one-on-one to truly shine.

Pete Mockaitis

Great perspectives here. And I love it we jumped right into some very precise practices. Maybe take a step back. What should be our mindset, our underlying goal, our approach, like, “I am doing this one-on-one in order to blank. Therefore, I will do it in the following style or way”?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

When rolling out one-on-ones, it’s really important to tie it to values, and we did this. If you ask managers about what they value, and you look at organization value statements, they are basically shouting one-on-ones. You invariably will see value such as helping others, supporting, leveraging team, all these things. Well, one-on-one is a manifestation of those values.

So, when you’re rolling this out to your folks, you want it to be about values, and that you are committed to their growth and their success, and you’re engaging in one-on-ones to basically live these values. And you’re going to be nimble, you’re going to keep changing these up based on their feedback, their ideas because you want them to have this large shaping influence for this to truly work.

And it’s constantly reminding yourself that this meeting is not for you. This is that one time where you are just fully focused on what’s on the mind of the directs. As a manager, you have power, you can meet with your direct anytime you want. You can send an email asking, “Hey, what’s going on with this project?” You can do that in an asynchronous document. There’s lots of mechanisms for you to have your needs met. This is just your mechanism to make sure their needs are being met.

And when we think about their needs, it’s not just their practical and tactical needs, but it’s their personal needs, the need to feel respected and trusted. These are fundamental kind of human needs. And when the one-on-one can address both of those sets of needs, then the direct leaves the one-on-one feeling pretty good. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to leave there with a big smile on their face because, who knows, maybe you talked about really hard stuff but at least they’ll feel truly seen.

Pete Mockaitis

Can you share, with these needs, is there a sort of taxonomy, or set of key categories, or top needs that should really be top of mind as we’re trying to deliver on these in the one-on-ones?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Love it. I provide a taxonomy in the book, and I lined up questions for each one of them, because you’re raising such a key issue. Really, the types of needs could be around the individual’s work, it could be the obstacles to their success. So, if we want to think about it as levels, so they have needs around their individual work, there could be needs around the team, there could be needs around the organization, better understanding organizational strategy, organizational priorities, organizational communications.

So, you have this individual, team, organization, and then you have the time horizon associated with each of them, they’re short term and long term. And in each of those boxes, that’s where you have those practical needs, and then underlying that are those personal needs, those psychological experience of the conversation. And those things together is really what a complete one-on-one is.

Now, with that said, you can’t do everything in these one-on-ones. You can only do so much. If your one-on-one is 20-25 minutes, which is okay if that’s what you need to do, we want quality over quantity. And if it turns out that the direct just wants to focus on one particular issue or one particular need, so be it. If that’s what’s on their mind, we want to go with it. We will remind them that, “Hey, I know you want to talk about some other things. It looks like we’re not going to get to them. Is that okay with you?”

So, again, we’re constantly signaling, “This is your meeting.” And because it’s their meeting, they can choose to spend as much time on any particular topic that they so desire.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, let’s shift gears for a moment, and let’s say you’re not the manager. You are the direct report who would like to have one-on-ones with more frequency, or you’re having the one-on-ones and they’re not hitting the mark. How do you recommend we show some initiative, some proactive shaping to get what we’re after here?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

So, how I frame it in my content is really it takes two to tango, each party does have responsibilities. While the manager has the most responsibilities, the direct does, too. And in our research, we’ve identified 10 key behaviors that directs have, and we don’t have time to go into all of them but let me share a few.

So, first of all, you can’t get what you need unless you know what you need. And so, before that one-on-one, the direct actually has to really think, really, really think about what their challenges, issues, problems are, needs are. And that takes a little bit of thought. And so many times, directs go into these one-on-ones not doing that. And by doing so, they’re violating the spirit of the one-on-one, and the void, the gap will be filled but with managers’ needs. So, know what you need, that’s first.

Second, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Asking for help is critical to human success but the research generally shows that there’s two types of help-seeking behavior. There’s autonomous help-seeking behavior and dependent. Now, dependent help-seeking is really where you ask the other party to solve your problem. Autonomous help-seeking is really about acquiring information or insights so you can solve your problem yourself.

An autonomous help-seeking is associated with long-term success; dependent is not. So, when you go in there, you know what you need, you’re asking for help in an autonomous way, you’re getting ideas, you’re listening to feedback, you’re checking yourself to not be defensive, you’re engaging in really good rapport behaviors because, who knows, maybe your manager is not good at establishing rapport so you’re jumping in to make sure there is good rapport, and you’re expressing gratitude.

You might even offer help to your manager because one of the things we know about help behavior is when you offer help to other people, they tend to offer help back to you. So, the direct has an active role to making these things truly work. But in so many regards, the direct is going to look at the signals, the signals of what the manager is doing and not doing, and those signals are really going to drive how seriously they enter into that one-on-one.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Steven, tell me, anything else critical you want to make sure to cover before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I think there’s a few things that I’ll just kind of throw out there. One-on-ones are truly an essential activity, especially in a more distributive workforce. Everyone is craving feeling seen, and one-on-ones are the mechanism. I also want to put out there that one-on-ones are an investment of time that actually saves you time.

Namely, what has generally been found is that when you have these regular one-on-ones with your folks, you tend to get less spontaneous interruptions because people seem to save their issues. Furthermore, because one-on-ones elevate the direct’s performance, there’s less time spent on rework. Furthermore, because when one-on-ones are done well, employees are more engaged and they’re less likely to leave the organization.

So, the point being is that you have many managers who say, “I just don’t have time.” Well, the fact is this truly is going to make time. And one of the things I do in the book is I talk about other areas where you can drop activities to find time but this is just not one of them. This is a core activity of being a leader.

And then I want to say one other thing, which I think you might get a kick out of. The core elements of the book really lays out, it gives the manager choices. So, I’ve identified all these evidence-based techniques that can make these better, but I don’t prescribe. I don’t say, “Do A then B, then C,” because the science doesn’t align with that. This is also why I stress both the art and the science.

So, you know your values, you know your people, so you have choices, and you could take these choices and make them work for you. And there’s another interesting application of all this. One-on-ones could actually be done with your children. And I know that sounds crazy, and I’m not at all suggesting you have these rigid calendar holds with your kids, but the fact is a lot of the core elements of one-on-ones do apply to these familial relationships.

It’s so often that parents don’t actually truly talk to their child on the child’s terms, really exploring what’s on their minds, and just finding that dedicated space. And clinicians have been talking about this for a long time that when a parent does a lot of these same practices with their kids, it builds better relationships, more self-efficacy for them, and they thrive. So, I think that what’s cool about the book is that it’s not only good for your career, whether you’re a leader or a direct, but you can apply it to these other contexts.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, Steven, that’s powerful. And I recently asked my five-year-old son, “What do I do with you that makes you feel the most loved by me?” And he said, “When we have Dada-Johnny time, one-on-one.” And that’s powerful because it’s just like for the manager, it’s very easy to not do that in the midst of “This house is a mess, and there’s two other siblings crying out for attention.” So, it’s like you really got to conscientiously have to stop the world, and say, “No, this is what we’re doing right now.”

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

“And me and Johnny are chatting, and no one else is allowed in the room. That’s what we’re doing now.”

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Oh, man, Pete, that is a beautiful story, by the way, and you just nailed it. That’s just a great example. It’s just as a young human to an old human, we all just want to feel seen. The thought of people taking an interest in us is so incredibly meaningful. And if we want to elevate work, people, teams, and humanity more broadly, we need to make time for these conversations.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

I like the quote, “Living well is the best revenge.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

There’s this book, and I don’t know the author, it’s called Postmortal. And, basically, it’s this dystopian novel that gets to a point where all humans can live forever, assuming they don’t fall off a building. And what is so cool about it is it just talks about the implications of a society that doesn’t die. And, clearly, that’s not sustainable.

But, at the same time, when people don’t die, it creates great challenges to institutions that we kind of take for granted. For example, what’s marriage if you don’t die? So, I just really liked the story and I liked some of the more intellectual kind of dilemmas that it created.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And, Steven, is there a particular quote that you share, a Steven original, that seems to really connect and resonate with folks?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

It might be something around the notion of stewardship. So, this is something I talk about a lot, that the best meeting leaders recognize that they’re inherently a steward of others’ time.

Pete Mockaitis

And, Steven, do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Make meaningful time available to those on your team, in your network, and do as much good as you can do, elevate as many lives as you can. And, ultimately, through both of those, the wonderful benefit is that you will thrive as well. And I always go back to one of the greatest predictors of life satisfaction is helping of others. And one-on-ones, that opportunity, sincerely and truly help others.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Steven, thank you for this. I wish you many transformational one-on-ones.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg

Thank you very much. And, definitely, folks can check out my website, StevenRogelberg.com. I have a ton of resources there for people, lots of things, checklists that they can download. I obviously have links to the book. The neat thing is I just want to get this book out there. I’m donating all my royalties to the American Cancer Society, every penny of them. So, check out the book if you want to have transformative one-on-ones, or check out the book if you want to help eradicate cancer.