Unlocking the Power of One-on-One Meetings: A Guide for Managers and Employees

ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard.

The Importance of One-on-One Meetings in Career Progression

We see a lot of advice about how to run more effective meetings: make sure the right people are in the room, circulate an agenda, solicit everyone’s opinion, rotate the note-taker, leave with action items. But most people don’t think very carefully about the meetings that actually might be the most important for individuals who want to progress in their careers and managers who want to get the best out of their team members. That meeting is the one-on-one.

Common Mistakes in One-on-One Meetings

STEVEN ROGELBERG: So in our research with a host of organizations, we have found none – none – that actually provide any training to their managers around one-on-one meetings. I have found only two that explicitly provide guidance that managers should be doing this with their folks on a regular cadence and monitoring whether it’s actually happening. So basically, it’s a free-for-all. And like many things, managers just tend to recycle their past experiences. And that’s problematic when those past experiences are far from optimal.

The Positive Outcomes of Effective One-on-One Meetings

So an effective one-on-one approach leads to so many positive outcomes. In many regards, it’s one of the greatest leadership opportunities. Effectively doing one-on-ones promotes employee engagement, it promotes retention of your top talent. Doing effective one-on-ones seems to elevate team success. Anytime you elevate the success of those that report into you, well that’s a reflection of you as a manager. So good one-on-ones also are tied to managerial success.

How to Improve One-on-One Meetings: Tips for Managers and Employees

ALISON BEARD: Great. Well Steven, thank you so much. That’s been super helpful advice for both managers and their employees about how to make one-on-ones better.

STEVEN ROGELBERG: You’re welcome. I love chatting with you. It was such a pleasure.

ALISON BEARD: That’s Steven Rogelberg, chancellor’s professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He wrote the book Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, as well as the HPR article Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings. And we have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.