The Meeting that Matters

The most important meeting on your calendar probably isn't the executive team meeting, the board meeting, or the quarterly business review.

It's your one-on-one.

And yet... most leaders spend that time talking about the work instead of growing the person doing the work.

You see, the question many managers ask in their one-on-one sounds something like: “How’s the project going?” And the most common answer? “Good.”

Wow. What an insightful exchange. Aren’t we all glad that we took the time to meet today?

Come on leaders. Yes, you’re busy. AND… You can do better than that!

One-on-one’s should NOT be:

• A task that needs to be checked off your to-do list
• A method of babysitting your employees
• A tactic for just managing the “work”

One-on-ones SHOULD:

• Expand skill sets
• Build both competence AND confidence
• Result in long-term gains. The employee is MORE valuable because of the time you have spent together.

Here's the truth.

Getting the work done is the minimum requirement of leadership. Growing people while getting the work done? That's where great leaders separate themselves.

Lead with intentionality.

Every one-on-one should begin with one question: "What do I want to be different because we had this conversation?"

If your answer is simply, "I want to know the status of the project," you're aiming far too low.

The purpose of a one-on-one is not to inspect work. It's to increase a person's value over time. And when your employees leave every conversation more capable, more confident, and more valuable than when they walked in, your one-on-ones won't just be meetings… They'll become one of the greatest leadership investments you’ll ever make.