The top 5 reasons 1-on-1 meetings fail (and how to fix them)

You wouldn’t go to a customer meeting without proper preparation, would you? The same goes for 1-on-1 meetings with your employees. To get the most out of your 1-on-1s, you should adequately prepare for each meeting.

Preparing for your 1-on-1 meeting ensures that the meeting stays on track and you cover all the topics you want to discuss. It also shows your employees that you value them and respect their time, which can lead to higher motivation and employee engagement. They will appreciate the fact that you are invested in their success, and they will pay you back with trust and respect—both of which are essential to foster positive work relationships.

So how do you prepare for your 1-on-1 meetings?

First, you need to set the agenda and outline all the topics you want to discuss. This will ensure you won’t forget any important talking points. The agenda should be accessible by both the manager and the employee because 1-on-1s are not a one-way street. Employees should be able to add talking points to the agenda as well. So, whenever something comes up during the week, you can each add it to the agenda for your next 1-on-1.

Next, you should review the last 1-on-1 and check the action items you agreed on the prior week; to keep track of the discussion points and action items, it’s important to document progress. There are countless tools out there that help you to run effective 1-on-1 meetings—personally I use 15Five, but a Google Doc does the job as well. You can easily find a template that fits your needs online.

If you have a fairly new member on your team, it will be tremendously helpful to check their values and drivers before going into the meetings. Attuned’s Intrinsic Motivation Report shows you at a glance what your employee values at work. Don’t forget that everyone is unique—more unique than you think. If the two of you have similar values, easy! But if they differ, you as their manager must tailor your communication style to motivate and reach them.

The art of giving feedback is extremely hard, but if you master it you will see your people thrive. However, if your feedback is inconsistent or conflicting, your employees will suffer from confusion and frustration. That’s why giving consistent feedback during your 1-on-1 meetings is important as a manager.

But how do you do it?

First, you have to understand that everyone has differing needs for feedback, both in quality and quantity. More junior people tend to have a higher need for feedback, so you should provide them with feedback more regularly than your senior employees. You can always check someone’s score for Feedback in their Intrinsic Motivator Report when you are not sure. If someone has a score higher than 70, it means Feedback is crucial to them at work, and not providing it will have a detrimental effect on their motivation and performance.

That being said, the most important thing you can do is to set clear expectations. You have to provide a framework for your employees to understand what they should do, how they should do it, and what success looks like. If they don’t have that, no feedback in the world can help them.

Once the framework has been established, you and your team have to work on developing a shared language. Every team member must understand what certain phrases, terms, and abbreviations mean to minimize misunderstandings. If you use a lot of industry jargon, you should provide new team members with a glossary.

When it comes to providing the actual feedback, here are three tips to ensure effectiveness.

1. Make It Motivating
   Although corrective feedback is necessary every once in a while, positive and asserting feedback has much stronger effects on people’s motivations. Instead of highlighting mistakes, reinforce successes.

2. Make It Tailored
   As mentioned above, everyone has different needs for feedback, and these can vary strongly by several factors such as cultural background or personal values. I am based in Japan, where feedback is much more indirect than in Western countries. When it comes to values, someone who values Rationality needs different feedback than those with high Competition or Security. You have to really understand your employee (and yourself) first in order to provide valuable feedback.

3. Make It A Two-Way-Street
   The easiest way to know if you are providing enough (and good) feedback is to directly ask your employees. But to make this work you have to create a culture of Psychological Safety, where people feel safe to speak up and give honest feedback. Now you can identify areas where you have been inconsistent and improve as a manager. Keep in mind that Feedback is about giving as well as receiving.

Everyone has an infinite amount of work they could be doing at any time. So how do your employees decide where to focus on in any given week? By providing them with clear goals. Without clear goals, employees lack focus, motivation, and accountability, and your 1-on-1 meetings will lack the same. It’s your job as a manager to prevent these issues by setting up long- and short-term goals.

Start with the big picture. Make sure your employee’s career goals are aligned with your company’s vision and values. It’s important that the employee understands how their work contributes to the overall success of the organization. Ideally, you work with the employee to set those goals to ensure they are engaged in the process and committed to achieving the goals. Keep in mind that goals should be challenging yet achievable and need a clear timeline. More difficult goals produce higher levels of effort and performance.

Now you can break those large goals down into quarterly objectives and weekly tasks so your team member knows at any given moment how to prioritize and where to focus their efforts on to grow and move towards their goals. This sets the stage for productive 1-on-1s because you can now use that time to help them achieve their goals by providing necessary tools or resources and removing any bottlenecks.

P.S. Goals can change over time (personal as well as company goals) so it’s necessary to review them every once in a while and make potential adjustments or changes.

“To be truly empathetic requires understanding, not just of what motivates other people, but also how those different motivations can manifest. By having a clear view of team members’ values {…} leaders can immediately put themselves in the shoes of people who they might otherwise have spent months (or even years) trying to figure out.” (Enhanced emotional intelligence? There’s an app for that…)

If you want to run valuable 1-on-1 meetings, you need to be empathetic. The ability to truly understand how another person is experiencing a specific situation is key to people management. Without empathy, you risk poor communication, a lack of trust, and reduced motivation. You can’t help someone if you don’t know what’s actually going on—and your employee will notice it. At some point they will start thinking, “My manager just doesn’t get it!”, and they will lose trust in you as a leader and as a person. When you get to this point, you are unlikely to be able to reach them and won’t be able to provide effective coaching and guidance, which should be at the core of every 1-on-1 meeting.

So how can you become more empathetic?

You have to really listen to your employee. Active listening is the keyword here. You have to pay close attention to not just what they are saying but also their behavior and body language. Don’t judge—the goal is to simply understand your employee’s perspective. After listening, repeat back the main points of their message. This will demonstrate understanding and convince them that you acknowledge their feelings and emotions.

Once you have this foundation, you can work with them to develop solutions that meet their needs. Don’t forget to deeply consider and actively promote their inputs and ideas. By demonstrating empathy during your 1-on-1 meetings, you can build stronger relationships with your employees and create an environment that fosters trust, motivation, and growth.

Last but not least, frequency determines the success of your 1-on-1 meetings. Unless you have a large number of direct reports (10+ people), it is advisable to have 1-on-1 meetings on a weekly basis. Research has shown this is what most employees prefer while also creating a positive effect on employee engagement.

Infrequent meetings can lead to a lack of progress on larger projects because it becomes difficult to identify and address problems early. Similarly, infrequent meetings mean infrequent feedback, having further detrimental effects on a project as well as your employee’s growth.

A big aspect of 1-on-1 meetings is relationship-building, especially with newer members on your team (or with you if you are a new manager). Weekly meetings allow you to provide more guidance and support to establish alignment and foster relationships with your team members.

Finally, don’t cancel or reschedule your 1-on-1 meetings unless it’s unavoidable. It will make your employees feel deprioritized and demoralize them. If you really have to cancel a 1-on-1 meeting, you should reschedule it immediately, ideally on the same day but at least within the same week—even if this means it will be shorter. Some time together is better than no time. And don’t forget to explain why you have to reschedule—your employee will appreciate the transparency.

1-on-1 meetings can be a powerful tool for building strong relationships with your team members and driving performance. However, to get the most out of these meetings, it’s important to be aware of the common pitfalls that can derail them. By addressing the above issues you can set yourself and your team up for success.

But even with the best intentions and practices, keeping your team members motivated and engaged can be a challenge. Attuned is designed to help managers build a more engaged and motivated team by understanding and unlocking the individual drivers of motivation for each team member. By using Attuned, you can take your team’s performance to the next level, and keep your team members engaged and happy.

So, keep this in mind for your next 1-on-1 meeting and take your team’s performance to the next level.