5 biggest mistakes people make in 1:1 meetings
Before starting to build a tool for handling 1:1 meetings, I made research to find out what are the main concerns and struggles related to it. Of course, I have done 1:1 meetings myself too, but this time I asked hundreds of HR managers and team leads, how they organize their 1:1 meetings. I read through lots of (research) articles, and based on the information I received, and experiences I have, I put together the most common mistakes people make when organizing, conducting and concluding their 1:1 meetings.
1. Employees understand 1:1 meetings differently
Being on the same page with 1:1 meetings is crucial, and expecting that people understand these the same way is naive. Some employees use 1:1 meetings to delegate tasks, some use the opportunity to just small talk for 20 minutes or some ask the other participant to present his most recent work. People have different understandings, and in the end, this means there’s no decent outcome.
Make sure you teach them (or let someone to teach them), what are the main principles of 1:1 meetings. Show them what topics should be raised, how often they should have 1:1 meetings, and what should be the outcome. If they don’t understand the value and purpose, they will never start doing these correctly and 1:1 meetings keep being showstoppers from doing their “actual job”. Educating them is the foundation for successful communication, so make sure you invest in it.
2. No preparations are being made
From many HR managers I heard that employees, nor team leads prepare 1:1 meetings. They just hop in the video and start talking about a random topic. In the best scenario, at some point they’ll end up talking about key topics, the worst scenario is awkward silence or only finding out how the other person’s dog is doing (which isn’t THAT bad, right?).
Prepare questions or at least topics you need to talk about, and always make sure you follow them. Like every other meeting, 1:1 conversations also need an agenda. You can of course always come up with new topics and ideas on the go, but 90% of the time sticking to your 1:1 structure helps to avoid useless chit-chat or going into too many details and losing the focus of the conversation.
3. Meetings are done inconsistently
I believe 90% of people I talked to didn’t do 1:1 meetings correctly in terms of the length and frequency. Most people have 1:1 conversations too rare and too long, others make meetings more often, but too short. If you have 1:1 meetings twice a year, you don’t get feedback that’s up to date, nor can you share news about what’s going on in the company if things happened months ago. If you have meetings twice a year, they include too much information and feedback, start getting overwhelming and too time-consuming, because they can last up to 3–4 hours.
Make sure your 1:1 meetings last about an hour. It’s enough time to break the ice and collect decent feedback. If you have less than 5 people in your team, have 1:1 meetings weekly. If you have more, then having 1:1 conversations biweekly is enough. One more thing — make sure people understand the length and frequency the same way!
4. No action items come out from 1on1's
According to the people I interviewed, quite many of them organize meetings really well. They ask the right questions, discuss important topics, receive insightful feedback, make notes of everything, share the outcome with other team members, and then…that’s it. You can do everything right, but if a 1:1 meeting doesn’t end up with actions, there’s not much of a use.
Based on the feedback you receive and give, make sure you always write down tasks that need to be done to achieve an improvement or a change. The action can be anything — reading a book, buying conference tickets, organizing a meeting with someone else, getting your teammate a new chair or putting together ideas on how to improve one’s productivity— it can be whatever, but it has to be something! Also, make sure you address these in every 1:1 meetings. Talk about what you already managed to put into practice since the past conversation. Discuss what needs more attention or what’s the problem you can’t solve at this moment, and why. Action items should always be part of your 1:1 meeting.
5. Meetings aren’t done between managers
While talking about 1:1’s, we always speak about taking care of our team members — making sure they’re happy, taken care of and motivated. Every time I asked a manager: “Who takes care of you?”, they said that mostly nobody has time for them. Who takes care of the lead? Who makes sure they have the motivation and confidence to be a role model for their team members? Who makes sure they are heard? Often, the people above team leads don’t have the time to have real conversations, gather unfiltered feedback and really look into managers’ challenges and struggles.
It might not be an ideal solution, but I know something that helps. The same way you have 1:1 meetings with your team members, organize these with other managers too. They can work in a completely different environment, have a totally separate job, but challenges for most managers are often the same and sharing these, discussing and finding solutions together is so much more valuable than facing everything alone. Instead of working on separate corners, it will show you that you’re not alone and you are all working towards the same goals. What can be more important than this?
Companies, their culture, people and habits are different, and even if you don’t agree with some rules in the world of 1:1 meetings, make sure you’re still all on the same page with it. I’ve seen so many firms where 1:1 meetings are done completely different in every team, and even if meetings aren’t done wrong, doing them differently is one of the biggest mistakes.
These problems are the main reason I started to develop a tool for not only organizing the 1:1 meetings, but also for making simple notes, marking down problematic topics and following the feedback coming from your team members in a simple Timeline view. Remoco.io will be released soon, so register on the site and get an early access.
