When Andy Grove, the then CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Intel was asked to find the single most useful management technique that he had learned through his years of managing, his answer was: ‘The practice of regularly scheduled one-on-ones’.
In almost thirty years of managing at Intel, I found one-to-ones were best scheduled once a week or every two weeks (minimum). The frequency was set depending on an employee’s level of newness or relative maturity in their role. You needed to set the expectation that the one-to-one was owned by the employee. That is, they set the agenda and came prepared to discuss their issues. I was always conscious to create the space where the employee could bring up whatever subject they were preoccupied with. In the one-to-one, the employee could then direct the discussion in ways that would help them with their day-to-day problems or raise sensitive issues.
“The one-to-one provides opportunities for the manager to teach and coach the employee while learning from the employee about their problems and observations from the field. I always ended one-to-one conversations with the question, “Is there one thing I can do to help?”
Over time the vision of what one-to-ones should be has been eroded. Managers have become increasingly busy. The belief grew that work reviews or impromptu corridor meetings made the one-on-one redundant. The thought was that there were so many opportunities to communicate that regularly scheduled one-on-ones were a waste of precious management time. This is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the one-to-one is.
The great strength of the one-to-one is the opportunity for the manager to provide value for the employee whether that be sharing business context, providing technical knowledge, mentoring, or coaching that enables the employee to do their work better. Equally the manager, with their wider view of the business, can add value by spotting duplication of effort or work that needs redirection.
At Redsky Leadership we see the one-to-one as a safe space to build rapport between the manager and the employee. This opportunity to build trust over the regular cadence of meetings enables the sharing of issues that will never be raised in a chance corridor encounter. Grove was also quoted as saying, ‘That one-on-ones were the preventive medicine of management work’. He believed that the investment in one-on-ones paid back in better employee engagement, improved work performance, waste elimination, and increased alignment.
In this post-covid era where many managers and employees are struggling with these very issues, the question facing us now is not whether we have time to hold effective one-to-ones but whether we can afford not to. If you’re thinking about introducing the practice of effective one-to-ones in your organisation and you’re not sure where to start, contact us for a no-obligation conversation today.
