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In the early days of artificial intelligence, Roger Thompson became fascinated as one of his professors at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business had the students use the new technology to test their assumptions about organizational effectiveness. Time after time, when they looked at the research unearthed by AI scouring its huge archive, the students learned it actually was rather flimsy and their assumptions similarly shaky.
Searching for a topic to tackle for his doctorate thesis, The Pickering, Ont.-based consultant realized he should test his assumption that one-on-one meetings were as effective as he believed from his work with various companies over the years. He began to check but could only find six research papers looking at this central aspect of today’s workplace. So he set out to add one more study, on the perceived effectiveness of meetings by the direct reports, because other studies and practitioner’s advisories on the topic always adopted the manager’s lens.
He looked at a 1,200-person company, testing the value of one-on-ones through an anonymous survey and follow-up interviews with a cross-section of the employees. The key finding: The higher the perceived effectiveness of one-on-ones, the lower the intention of the employee to leave.
“It comes down to the age-old question: Do I feel supported by my manager? People who don’t feel supported have a higher likelihood to leave,” he says in an interview.
That means one-on-ones are not a courtesy meeting. They are a retention mechanism. Done well, they build the kind of relationship that makes people more likely to stay, especially during periods of stress or uncertainty.
For managers, that means changing your mindset. The tendency is to view one-on-ones as a chance to know what employees are doing. It’s for the manager – a progress report, if not control mechanism.
For employees, on the other hand, the meetings are a chance to get help on priorities, know if they face a problem the boss supports them and perhaps tying that all together, the desire to be heard. But instead, direct reports too often find themselves simply giving updates (if the meeting even takes place, given how busy everyone is).
To improve one-on-ones, therefore, managers must make a mental flip, embracing the idea that the meeting is essentially for the employee, allowing them access to their supervisor.
“You are not doing the one-on-ones because you are supposed to as a leader – it’s on the checklist of what makes a good leader or it’s mandated by your organization. Instead, you are doing it because you recognize that the more you engage with your team members, the higher likelihood they will be more engaged themselves, they will get more feedback and, of course, if they are of high quality they will improve performance,” he says.
Managers and their team communicate in many ways. But he stresses there should be a formal, face-to-face meeting once every week or two, giving the employee scheduled access to the manager. That’s particularly important in a world where employees and their manager may not be co-located or face a hybrid situation, so are not bumping into each other routinely in the hallway.
“Access is about having more than email interaction,” he says. “It’s synchronous. Even a phone call.” Text messaging and WhatsApp can also work.
The time together need not be long, the interviewees stressed. Even five minutes. But it’s the knowledge they have access.
“The employees who weren’t happy would say, ‘I just can’t get time with my boss. It feels like they don’t care about me. Or when we do get time, it’s all about them,’” Mr. Thompson recalls.
Carving out time can be difficult. He doesn’t see evidence that greater spans of control – managers overseeing more employees – are occurring and influencing the equation. But he does find managers are being forced to take on more individual contributor work – assignments, projects and tasks they must complete themselves – and have less time to mange and lead.
“They say, ‘there’s no time for one-on-ones as I have to get all these things done,’” he says.
His reply is to make adjustments so effective one-one-ones can be held. Perhaps the manager has been told one-on-ones must be weekly for an hour. But they can in fact work biweekly for half an hour, with some individual touchpoints between them. Longer sessions, he stresses, are not automatically better. A focused 10-minute conversation can be far more valuable than a drifting 45-minute one. Having a bad one-on-one, he warns, is worse than not having one.
No matter how severe the time pressures, don’t cancel a scheduled one-on-one. That sends a negative signal. “When a manager repeatedly reschedules, no-shows or treats the meeting as optional, employees often read that as: ‘I am not a priority,’” he says.
And that’s not a message to send, if you want to hold onto employees and have them working effectively.
Cannonballs
- Peter Drucker, who has been called the inventor of modern management, outlined five classic questions leaders must ask. If you have heard them, they are worth a refresh; if not, here they are: What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? What is our plan?
- Recruiting specialist John Sullivan says the best hires are passionate about working for your company. Some indicators: They reveal they have a select number of companies they are focused on; they have been a finalist candidate at your company previously; they have worked for the company before; an employee referred them; they are one of your customers; they have completed in-depth research into your organization; and their enthusiasm and passion for your company is unmistakable.
- Entrepreneur Seth Godin observes there is a difference between telling someone their work can become better and saying it can become even better.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.