Good leaders prepare for their weekly meetings with team members. They know the ground they want to cover, the updates they want to receive, and the issues they want to drive home. One-on-one meetings are an invaluable opportunity for leaders to build relationships, provide guidance, and work through problems with their team members.
Re: Spaces Convo... I have 7-8 direct reports. Some lead other teams and some are individual contributors. I hold 1:1s every two weeks. For the individual contributors, we meet as a team every other week too (off week from 1:1s). During team meetings, we focus on cascading company news and project statuses. That leaves room for problem solving or creation during our 1:1s. I struggle with my 1:1s with my People Managers leading other teams. During these, we cover both, because I don't sit in on their team meetings. Recently, I've gotten all my People Managers to create a project tracker in Todoist. Before I meet with them, I review their project trackers and will leave comments/questions there instead of asking them to provide an update to all their priority projects (takes most of our 1:1 time). This seems to be helping. Where I feel there is an opportunity is to get my People Managers together on some cadence to share/discuss problems and best practices so they can learn from each other. Or maybe, I should encourage them to reach out to each other. I'm struggling with how to do this. Thanks for the post and the discussion today.
We actually started this recently, as our firm grew and became more spread out across the country, we saw the need to provide a platform for the kind of collaboration that you seem to be looking for. We set them up to meet weekly, but they intentionally mix and rotate every two months.
Perhaps one question you might concern yourself with... do you think the conversation will have the kind of candor it needs if you are present for the times that your People Managers get together?
You give me something to think about. I have them all come together for our emerging LeaderShift program. They are all instructors - Our program manager pulls them together 1X a week to talk about status updates/issues regarding the program. But they don't collaborate naturally with each other. They should. They'd learn a lot. Thanks for sharing what you folks are doing over at AL.
Re: Spaces Convo... I have 7-8 direct reports. Some lead other teams and some are individual contributors. I hold 1:1s every two weeks. For the individual contributors, we meet as a team every other week too (off week from 1:1s). During team meetings, we focus on cascading company news and project statuses. That leaves room for problem solving or creation during our 1:1s. I struggle with my 1:1s with my People Managers leading other teams. During these, we cover both, because I don't sit in on their team meetings. Recently, I've gotten all my People Managers to create a project tracker in Todoist. Before I meet with them, I review their project trackers and will leave comments/questions there instead of asking them to provide an update to all their priority projects (takes most of our 1:1 time). This seems to be helping. Where I feel there is an opportunity is to get my People Managers together on some cadence to share/discuss problems and best practices so they can learn from each other. Or maybe, I should encourage them to reach out to each other. I'm struggling with how to do this. Thanks for the post and the discussion today.
We actually started this recently, as our firm grew and became more spread out across the country, we saw the need to provide a platform for the kind of collaboration that you seem to be looking for. We set them up to meet weekly, but they intentionally mix and rotate every two months.
Perhaps one question you might concern yourself with... do you think the conversation will have the kind of candor it needs if you are present for the times that your People Managers get together?
You give me something to think about. I have them all come together for our emerging LeaderShift program. They are all instructors - Our program manager pulls them together 1X a week to talk about status updates/issues regarding the program. But they don't collaborate naturally with each other. They should. They'd learn a lot. Thanks for sharing what you folks are doing over at AL.