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There are various types of meetings in the organization. Out of them, one of the most important meetings is a one-on-one meeting. Actually, meetings have a bad name. One school of management thought considers them the curse of the manager’s existence. Someone who did a study found that managers spend up to 50 percent of their time in meetings, and implied that this was time wasted. Peter Drucker once said that spending more than 25 percent of his time in meetings is a sign of a manager’s malorganization, and William H. Whyte, Jr., in his book The Organization Man, described meetings as “non-contributory labor” that managers must endure.
But there is another way to regard meetings. A big part of a middle manager’s work is to supply information and know-how and to impart a sense of the preferred method of handling things to the groups under his control and influence. A manager also makes and helps to make decisions. Both kinds of basic managerial tasks can only occur during face-to-face encounters, and therefore only during meetings.
Initiation & Frequency of Meeting
Who should have a one-on-one meeting? A supervisor should perhaps meet with all those who work under him, from professionals to production operators. If not with all, at least this meeting should happen between a supervisor and each of the professionals who report to him directly.
How often should you have one-on-ones? Or put another way, how do you decide how often somebody needs such a meeting? The answer is the job- or task-relevant maturity of each of your subordinates. In other words, how much experience does a given subordinate have with the specific task at hand? This is not the same as the experience he has in general or how old he is. You should have one-on-ones frequently (for example, once a week) with a subordinate who is inexperienced in a specific situation and less frequently (perhaps once every few weeks) with an experienced veteran.
Another consideration here is how quickly things change in a job area. In marketing, for example, the pace may be so rapid that a supervisor needs to have frequent one-on-ones to keep current on what’s happening. But in a research environment, life may be quieter, and for a given level of task-relevant maturity, less frequent meetings may suffice.
The one-on-one meeting should be scheduled on a rolling basis—setting up the next one as the meeting taking place ends. Other commitments can thereby be taken into account and cancellations avoided. If the supervisor uses a set schedule for a one-on-one, such as every second Tuesday morning, and if the subordinate’s vacation happens to fall on that date, the meeting is not going to occur. By scheduling on a rolling basis, this can be easily avoided.
Duration & Venue of Meeting
How long should a one-on-one meeting last? There really is no answer to this, but the subordinate must feel that there is enough time to raise and get into thorny issues. Look at it this way. If you had a big problem that you wanted to kick around with your supervisor—the person whose professional interest in the matter is second only to yours—would you want to bring it up in a meeting scheduled to last only fifteen minutes? You would not. Andrew S. Grove (Former CEO of Intel Corporation) feels that a one-on-one should last an hour at a minimum. Anything less, in his experience, tends to make the subordinate confine himself to simple things that can be handled quickly.
Where should a one-on-one take place? In the supervisor’s office, in the subordinate’s office, or somewhere else? You should have the meeting in or near the subordinate’s work area if possible. A supervisor can learn a lot simply by going to his subordinate’s office. Is he organized or not? Does he repeatedly have to spend time looking for a document he wants? Does he get interrupted all the time? Never? And in general, how does the subordinate approach his work?
Key Point About One-on-One
The one-on-one meeting should be regarded as the subordinate’s meeting, with its agenda and tone set by him. There’s a good reason for this. Somebody needs to prepare for the meeting. The supervisor with eight subordinates would have to prepare eight times; the subordinate only once. So the latter should be asked to prepare an outline, which is very important because it forces him to think through in advance all of the issues and points he plans to raise. Moreover, with an outline, the supervisor knows at the outset what is to be covered and can therefore help to set the pace of the meeting. An outline also provides a framework for supporting information, which the subordinate should prepare in advance. The subordinate should then walk the supervisor through all the material.
What should be covered in a one-on-one? We can start with performance figures, indicators used by the subordinate, such as incoming order rates, production output, or project status. Emphasis should be on indicators that signal trouble. The meeting should also cover anything important that has happened since the last meeting: current hiring problems, people problems in general, organizational problems and future plans, and—very, very important—potential problems.
Role of Supervisor in One-on-One
What is the role of the supervisor in a one-on-one? He should facilitate the subordinate’s expression of what’s going on and what’s bothering him. The supervisor is there to learn and to coach. Peter Drucker sums up the supervisor’s job here very nicely: “The good time users among managers do not talk to their subordinates about their problems but they know how to make the subordinates talk about theirs.”
How is this done? By applying Grove’s Principle of Didactic Management, “Ask one more question!” When the supervisor thinks the subordinate has said all he wants to about a subject, he should ask another question. He should try to keep the flow of thoughts coming by prompting the subordinate with queries until both feel satisfied that they have gotten to the bottom of a problem.
Leverage of One-on-One
What is the leverage of the one-on-one? Let’s say you have a one-on-one with your subordinate every two weeks, and it lasts one and a half hours. Ninety minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate’s work for two weeks, or for some eighty-plus hours, and also upgrade your understanding of what he’s doing. Clearly, one-on-ones can exert enormous leverage. This happens through the development of a common base of information and similar ways of doing and handling things between the supervisor and the subordinate. And this, as noted, is the only way in which efficient and effective delegation can take place. (Content credit to ‘High Output Management’ by Andrew S. Grove)
“Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.” – Peter Drucker
