431. Glad We Met – How to Get the Most Out of 1×1 Meetings

Chris Dixon:

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Nikki Miller:

Hello and welcome back to The ONE Thing Podcast. I'm Nikki Miller, unfortunately not joined today by my co-host Chris Dixon, and I'm flying solo with Dr. Steven Rogelberg. This is such an incredible conversation, y'all. I'm so excited for you to hear from him.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg is an organizational psychologist who holds the title of Chancellor's Professor at UNC Charlotte for distinguished national, international, and interdisciplinary contributions. His last book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team To Peak Performance, was recognized by the Washington Post as the number one leadership book to watch for. It's been featured on CBS This Morning, Freakonomics, HBR, NPR, Wall Street Journal, and BBC World. He was the inaugural winner of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Humanitarian Award and just finished his term as president of SIOP, the largest professional organization in the world for I/O psychology.

This is such an incredible conversation. He's here to talk to us today about his book, Glad We Met, which comes out on January 9th. And this is all about the science behind one-on-one meetings. I don't know about y'all, but so often I get into these meetings and it just could have been an email. The meeting could have been an email. And so many of us move through our days and just have death by meetings, so many calendared meetings back to back, and the question becomes, how do we actually decide what's worth having a meeting? What's worth a one-on-one? What could have been an email? And this is just such a powerful conversation.

Selfishly, I wanted to have him on the podcast so I could learn, and this did not disappoint. For those of you who have people who are reporting to you, those who report to someone in one-on-one meetings, I imagine all of us have a little bit of both, this is going to be such a powerful conversation for you to maximize the effectiveness of these meetings that you have, and also to understand how and why they're so important and how these one-on-ones can change the trajectory of your business and of your relationships with your team. This is such an incredible conversation. Let's get to it.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to The ONE Thing Podcast. I am so excited, we have a very special guest today, Dr. Steven Rogelberg, who is an organizational psychologist. You hold the title of chancellor's professor at UNC Charlotte for distinguished national, international, and interdisciplinary contributions. You wrote an incredible book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team To Peak Performance. And today, we are talking about Glad We Met, your new book coming out on January 9th. Thank you so much for being here, Steven. I'm so excited to have you.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

It's my pleasure. I'm really glad to do this.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I told you selfishly before we jumped on, I chose this interview personally for me because I just love one-on-one meetings. I know we spend so much time trying to get into these meetings, wanting them to be productive, and yet I see not only in my own organization, but in other organizations that we coach and train, this can be just the biggest time suck and eventually the biggest bane of people's existence within organizations. So, talk to me about this book. How did this concept come about? I know this is something that you study so thoroughly and I'm just so excited to ask you all the questions.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. So, as an organizational psychologist, I'm really drawn to study topics that are practically really meaningful, that are not reaching the full potential, and then shed science on it, and hope that science can unlock the potential benefits that exists.

And when looking at the one-on-one meeting space, it's pretty much empty when it comes to evidence-based practices. You know, managers are basically just recycling the practices that they themselves have experienced. So, it was a really wide open space and I was super excited to do the science, do the work, and then put it all together and bring it to folks. And the neat thing about the book is it's really capturing both the art and the science. Unlike some other areas where you can be very prescriptive and say do A, B, and C, in the world of one-on-ones, it doesn't work that way. You know, there's good evidence-based insights, but ultimately the manager has to identify the process that really fits their values and the values of their directs.

Nikki Miller:

Steven, you just said something that I think is really important and worth expanding on a little bit more. You said managers effectively are just predicating what they have experienced in one-on-one meetings. Because we're not really taught how to do these effectively, so you're just predicating, to your point, everything that you have experienced potentially with a manager before you, and if your meetings weren't great, not only are you walking into those meetings with a perspective that they shouldn't be valuable, but also you don't have a clue how to do that.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

But the worst thing is you think you know how to do that, so that's actually the biggest problem. So, when we've studied one-on-ones, around 50 percent are rated as suboptimal. That's horrible.

Nikki Miller:

Wow, 50 percent.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Fifty percent. And then, though, when you survey people, managers actually think they're doing a good job with them and they're not aligned with their directs. The directs don't think they're doing as good of a job. And so, you have suboptimal effectiveness coupled with a blind spot, which is the double whammy of misery.

And then, another thing, to your point, so I've interviewed probably at least 100 HR leaders in the Fortune 500. And I've only found one organization that provides training and guidance around one-on-one meetings.

Nikki Miller:

Wow. One.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

One. So, it's bonkers. But I mean, you've got this blind spot, you have suboptimal, you have organizations who have their own blind spot. So, here you have this activity, a one-on-one meeting that can truly be transformative for an organization that's just being neglected. And when it's being done, folks are just not doing a good job and actually might be causing harm.

Nikki Miller:

You also said something I want you to expand on, because to this point you're saying that we think we're good at them. The other side doesn't think we're good at them. No one is teaching us how to communicate that both sides are not in agreement. We're just perpetually having these 50 percent meetings that aren't as effective as they could be. And, obviously, we're going to get into how that could be more effective. But you said something earlier I want you to expand on, too, is that in these meetings, we have to teach these managers to have meetings based around their values, which is something at The ONE Thing we believe in really heavily. So, can you expand on that thought that you had.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

One-on-ones are very special activity. If you ask managers "Tell me about your values as a leader," invariably you'll hear things like "I want to help people thrive. I want to support people who work for me. I want to build my team." If you think about those values and how they can be enacted, one-on-ones are the engine behind that.

So, when a manager is either introducing one-on-ones or rebooting one-on-ones for their team, it shouldn't be framed as "Okay. Let's have another meeting," because that's not what people want to hear.

Nikki Miller:

Nobody wants that.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

No. What it should be framed as is that "As your manager, I want to see you succeed. I want to do everything I can to help you on that journey. And to that end, I'd like to have these one-on-one meetings, but I want to really emphasize that these one-on-one meetings are meetings that I will facilitate and orchestrate but they're about you. They're not about me. They're not about me getting into the weeds, checking every single piece of work that you've done or haven't done. It is a designated time for you to be seen, to be heard, to share your obstacles and challenges, and we could work through them. You need feedback? Great. But it's a dedicated and predictable time where I just want to turn my full focus on addressing what's on your mind. It does not mean that we won't have conversations outside of this, but this is a commitment that I'm absolutely going to make."

So, when you make that more values-based and when it's framed as a values-based conversation, people are like, "Wow. This is kind of neat. This manager actually is thinking non-selfishly." But ironically, it actually is still selfish, but not in a bad way. Because as your direct reports thrive and are more successful, it only reflects well on you as a manager.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and at the end of the day, our job, I believe, as managers is to not only get the most out of people, to aspire for them with their permission, but also to unlock whatever those keys are. And I think the biggest challenge is, to your point, if you're always picking away with what did you achieve this week, and if those one-on-one meetings are constantly just about productivity, and you can't open the meeting up or build enough trust in order for them to confide in you where they might be seeing challenges, I mean, you're never really going to get to the core of the issue.

I always say in business, so often we solve the problem at the end of the river because people keep falling in, like we just keep pulling people out of the river. But, eventually, someone needs to think to walk up the river and figure out why everybody keeps falling in. And that to me is what you're saying is that you can have these meetings and figure out where is all of this stemming from. Is that what you see in training this?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

It's great. Yeah, I mean, these one-on-ones, there's a couple of things that we want to avoid. We don't want them to be micromanaging sessions. We don't want them to fall into this just big status update trap. We want them to be more than that. We can monitor work activities and status of work activities in many different ways, so that will certainly emerge in these naturally but it's just not the goal. And the goal is just this much bigger, thoughtful conversation around short term issues, but also long term issues. We want the employee to be able to think about their future.

We know the popular adage that employees don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. And in many regards, these one-on-ones help prevent that. These one-on-ones really help you demonstrate concern and support and leadership. In so many ways, these one-on-ones are the stage for you as a leader. And when you think about excellent leadership, it's really about meaningful engagements, conversations on a foundation of safety.

Nikki Miller:

I love that. And you gave the perfect setup for this meeting, when you're pitching this to your team, it's not, "Hey, let's get another meeting on the books." So, you already walked us through how to set the meeting up so that they're excited about it. Walk us through what to do once you get in there, because I feel like that's where everything gets lost. Do we not have enough time for that today?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

I mean, obviously, you have three principal phases. You've got the start, the process, and the end, and there's relevant issues across the board. So, when we start, this is where we want to make sure that the topics that we're discussing are truly meaningful. And a lot of managers think that these meetings don't need an agenda, but our research says that they actually do, however they can be very lightweight. It can just be a plan of action. But what's even more important about that plan of action is that the direct report is informing it. The more involved the direct is into the plan of action, the higher the ratings of effectiveness. And that makes complete sense, because when they're involved, it's that additional signal that this meeting is for them.

So, as we're starting to plan these things out, there's a number of different ways of creating agendas. One of my favorites that got good ratings is the listing approach, where directs create their list of topics that they'd like to talk about and you create your list of topics. But one of the keys is that when the direct is creating their list, you want to prime them of all the various things that could be discussed because they're going to fall into a status update trap and we don't want that. So, you want to cue them to think about team, organization, what information they might need, where are they going big picture. So, cue them to come up with a well-rounded list of topics. And I share a whole host of examples in my book to help promote that.

Now, you create your own list. When you get into the meeting, there's almost like an exchange of lists, but your list is of secondary importance.

We want to cover what's on the direct's list. If there's natural points where you can insert your items, fine. But let's go through the direct's list, and if there's time remaining, then we cover your list. So, that helps to set the stage that this is a meeting for the direct.

And then, during the meeting, I mean, there's so many things that we can talk about, so I'm just going to say I'll share one thing and then we can explore more. But one of the most common mistakes is the manager talking more than their direct. And we need the direct to talk more than the manager. The more the manager talks, ratings of effectiveness just keep dropping. This is hard though for managers. Managers do like to talk. And the research shows that we talk a lot because it seems to activate the same parts of our brain as sex and good food, so, obviously, that promotes more talking and just be sure to give that gift to the direct. The manager should be asking good questions. They should be probing help me understand what can I do to help, to really help clarify the goals of the meeting.

And I'll stop there, but we can talk about close as well or more about process. But I just want to queue up some of the topics.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. I definitely want to get to closing process, but I do have all the questions for this middle part. Because I think that, to your point, so many of us will walk into these meetings, those of us that manage people are going to walk into these meetings and we have an agenda, what we want to know, what we want to achieve. And it's going to take practice for us to turn it on its head and figure out what the employee needs, what our team member needs, why they're struggling, or why they're winning, or whatever it might be, whatever it is that we're there to unpack.

And to your point, and I know you cover this in the book, and there's some great suggestions in there, we have to get better at asking great questions, which for most managers, I have to believe, is going to be an entirely different way of communicating and it's going to take a lot of practice. So, what's your advice for those people who are listening to this and saying, "If I'm really self-reflective, I am the one talking in these meetings and I am the one who is taking up the majority of the air space, so to speak"? So, what's your advice for them to slow it down and to reorient those meetings, especially if it's someone they've been managing for a long time?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

So, basically, it's constantly reminding yourself about the goal of this meeting. And it's easy to forget because we do have our own needs. But this is just not the goal. This is just that one opportunity. It's just the one opportunity that we can shine the spotlight on what the employees' needs are. So, it's just reminding ourselves and then learning more about active listening.

So, if the direct report is driving the agenda and you get into some more positive, healthy habits of asking why, help me understand, can you unpack this more, so it's these cues to these new routines of just really good listening. So, you have your theory that this is not for me. You are fully embracing that your job is to facilitate and ask good questions. And then, during solutioning, you're just constantly reminding the employee what are your thoughts about how to handle this.

But interestingly, when we ask employees about their thoughts around solutions, we fall into another trap, which is when an employee suggests something, we often replace it with what we think is the best solution, and this is highly problematic. Now, while managers can absolutely share their perspective, really, we want to be attentive to whether our solution and their solution, do they really meaningfully differ, is there a big and important gap between them. If there's not a big and important gap, use their solution. That conveys respect, and also the employee will be more dedicated to fully being motivated to enact the solution. And it might just work. You don't know if yours is going to be the absolute right answer. And if it doesn't work, then you talk about it and work through it and learn from it.

So, ultimately, the essence of these conversations, it's not this two-way give and take. It's this spotlight. We could almost think of it - and this is not the best analogy, but it's just to illustrate - if you go to a therapist or a counselor, the therapist doesn't say to you, "Oh. Hey, I hear you. You're depressed. Let me tell you about my depression." They recognize that that's not their role. And while these one-on-ones are not therapy sessions, they do resemble some of the characteristics of taking an interest in other's narratives. So, anything we can do to do that.

And then, you'll be rewarded for it because there's a such a strong connection with these one-on-ones being done well and employee engagement and employee retention. And so, you'll benefit from the more non-egocentric facilitation you do.

Nikki Miller:

You know, Steven, we coach and train and support so many large companies, which obviously means that with that, we coach and train and support so many leaders within those companies. And I can already hear them listening to this and the messages that I'm going to get, they're like, "This is all great in theory, but I'm super busy and I don't have the time to do these one-on-one meetings so deep because what if we don't get to what I wanted to talk about?" So, I know that you must get this objection, how do you work with those leaders?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Oh, I love it. So, first of all, this is one of those activities that will actually save you time. So, when people have predictable cadences, when they know they're going to get you as their manager, what appears to happen is they don't interrupt you throughout the week as much because they know they have this predictable time, so that's a benefit.

Second, when you have these one-on-ones, employees' performance or team performance improves, so there's less rework, less problems to solve. So, as a result, you're saving time that way because employees are getting it right the first time. Furthermore, these one-on-ones build alignment and that also winds up saving time. So, we have less interruptions, more effectiveness and more productivity, these are great. And if your best employees are staying with you because they actually feel fully seen, there's so much time savings associated with that.

I would say further that one-on-ones, they're actually not optional. It is core to effective leadership. The best leaders don't see them as an extra activity or an if time activity. It is literally, literally where leadership happens. It's that one time that is just clear that you are being a leader to that direct. So, it's just something that you have to do and you have to do it well. And, ultimately, it actually saves time. It's not just like all the laments about, "Oh. I have another meeting.

I have another meeting". That's just not the case.

And there was an alternative title for my book, and the alternative title was The One Meeting That Should Not Be An Email. And that actually is meaningful. This is not a meeting that should be an email. This is an email about genuine connection and it is the core of leadership. It is the proper investment to really realize incredible gains, including more time.

Nikki Miller:

You said something earlier that I don't think enough people talk about, which is that this true effective relationship building and leadership not only saves time in the long run, because it, to your point, increases effectiveness, increases productivity, but above all, it retains. And I don't think enough companies, enough leadership put enough thinking time around the cost of losing great, great people and having to rehire and having to retrain. I mean, anyone who has gone through that process can attest just how frustrating it is.

And by the way, that's also a message for those who have managers out there that you on the other side can coach them up to say this is what I need in order to continue to remain here. This is what would make me somebody who wanted to stay here forever.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. Yeah, and just building on that. You know, we collected data from employees about their preferred cadences around one-on-ones. So, first of all, we asked them, do you want one-on-ones and how often would you want them.

Nikki Miller:

I'm glad you're going to talk about this. That's literally what I was going to ask you next, like how often do we do this?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

All right. So, employees absolutely want these things, and they want them weekly or at most bi-week, every other week. And what was really interesting, Nikki, is that the more senior leaders actually wanted them even more than the junior leaders, the newer leaders. And this is because they know, they know how critical FaceTime is with their manager. And so, employees absolutely desire these. They want them.

And what's interesting is the research is also super consistent with the value of weekly or every other week, and that that seemed to promote the most employee engagement gains. When they're monthly, we don't see the same benefits. You just don't have that continuity. They're kind of plagued with recency effects.

So, everything aligns with the importance of a weekly or every other week one-on-one. And these things can vary in time, you know, depending on how many directs you have. If it's 20 minutes to 40 minutes, it's fine.

What's really important is the predictability. What's really important is that just the employee knows they have your undivided attention at this particular cadence. So, cadences absolutely matter.

And we also have to be careful of our own stereotypes that just because someone is senior, that they don't need these things. And they do. And if they're successful, we often have a stereotype that they don't need these things. They do. And if we see these employees, whether they're remote or in-person, the people in-person who still casually bump into you, that doesn't replace the need for these. So, that's some of the insights around cadences and preferences.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I have to imagine, too, I mean, I know so many managers who just have death by God a minutes. And I have to imagine that having this regular cadence helps to alleviate some, if not all of that.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.

Nikki Miller:

So, in this, I hear in the process that we want them to create the agenda and we want to put the spotlight on them. And part of this is not just building the relationship, but also building, obviously, productivity and their development. And you talk in the book about this, like how to sort of manage this delecate balance within that relationship. So, how do you do that in these meetings? Because, obviously, your job is to create productivity for the company, if you're the manager, and yet you're here with the team member to focus on their development and to make it all about them. So, I can see a manager getting lost in that and not maybe getting out of the meeting what they wanted to. So, how do you balance all of that?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

So, as a manager, you obviously have the power. If you need another meeting to discuss things that are on your mind, you have the ability to readily do that. You know, we have lots of different ways that we can communicate with people. So, the manager's needs can absolutely be addressed in a lot of different forums and a lot of different avenues, but there is a really intricate balance in all this.

One-on-ones, you're basically addressing two sets of parallel needs, practical needs and personal needs. So, practical needs are just those really tangible needs to ask questions, get feedback, find solutions. Those are the really practical needs. But then, there's this personal needs. The personal needs to feel respected and trusted. And those personal needs are really important. It's like the analogy is good food is the practical needs and the personal needs is good service. And if you have really good food and the service is terrible, you still had a bad experience.

So, the personal needs are the ones that often managers struggle with. You know, we just want to stay really tactical. And addressing the personal needs is just about active listening, really being thoughtful, maybe even being vulnerable. Because the best managers actually are appropriately vulnerable and that vulnerability serves to make others more comfortable being vulnerable and being safe.

So, managing that balance of personal and practical needs, recognizing that if you have needs around the manager, the employee that you can pursue those in many different ways. You can have another gathering or discussion, what have you, but this is just about the employee.

Nikki Miller:

If I'm sitting in a manager's seat and we're making it, like I said, entirely about the employee, I have to imagine that as that relationship grows, as that trust grows, there can sometimes also be challenges. On the other side is that we get too comfortable with each other, that we become friends. Do you see that ever happen and it makes it challenging to have the harder conversations?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

I mean, it certainly can, and there have been examples. But in general, the manager is not relinquishing their power. I mean, there's still going to be a massive power difference. There's still one party that's clearly asking the questions and the other party answering the questions. And so, still, the manager is not giving up on their role. They're just enacting their role. They're using their power for good and trying to make this a really positive win-win.

And I do want to say that, you know, when managers are asking questions - so we talked about the listing approach, that's great. An alternative approach is a manager could come in with a set of core question. Core questions about tell me about your biggest obstacles and challenges and how I can help, for example. And I lay out some of these potential core questions. So, they can come up with these core questions or they could ask the direct for their input into what core questions. And then, the direct should know about these things in advance so they can start thinking about it.

But here's what I wanted to share with you because I know our time is not forever, is that asking good questions is just part of the equation. We actually want to think about the response scale associated with those questions. Let me say more about that because it sounds kind of wacky. One of the most common questions to start a one-on-one is simply "How are you?" Well, sadly, that question doesn't work. When we ask someone how are you, it typically triggers an automatic response, "Oh, fine. Good. Great."

Well, the research has an answer to this. If you ask someone how are you, consider everything from work or non-work how are you, but answer on a ten point scale, with one being horrible, ten being great, how are you? When you ask it that way, now you're getting scores of sixes and sevens and fives, and now you have something to explore. Now, you can say, "Tell me more about that" or "What would help you become a ten?" So, you can see thoughtful questions and thoughtful response options can promote a really meaningful and genuine conversation.

And that's what helps that balance, where you're getting stuff done, but you're also addressing these personal needs. And as a result, the experience is really meaningful. And I think the key takeaway is that, we ideally would love for all parties to leave the meeting going "Wow. That was fabulous," but that's not necessarily the goal. The goal is meaningfulness, and that's what people crave these days. That's what COVID, in many regards, took away from us was meaningful conversations with people. And these one-on-ones become that mechanism for meaningful and genuine conversations.

Nikki Miller:

And I'm going to so encourage everyone to pick up a copy of the book because, at the end of the day, whenever someone says whatever their number is, I'm a four, I'm a five, I'm a six, I'm an eight, I'm a two, whatever it might be, we have to be prepared to unpack whatever that means. And that, to your point earlier, is just getting really good at asking great questions. And the book gives so many great examples of questions that you can ask and how to have these conversations. Because I would offer that, and I'm sure you see this in working with the organizations that you do, I think so many managers resist this simply because they're afraid that they might not know how to handle it if somebody says I'm a two or maybe somebody says I'm an eight, but they're failing at work and they're not sure what to do with it after that response.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. But your goal is not to be a therapist, right? So, if someone says they're a two, you could absolutely say help me understand that. And if the issues that are keeping them at two are really about personal family issues, you can refer them to an EAP. There's options that you still can do as a manager that allows you to be present and helpful. So, you're not a therapist, you're a manager, but you also know more about the resources available to employees. You've been around likely more, so you have ideas on how things could be addressed. So, it might be the case that you're helping just direct someone to someone else that can help. You don't always have to be the person that helps, but you can help the process evolve.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, I think that's a really important specification. You don't need to save them from this situation and you can help facilitate them figuring out the answer to this, whatever it may be for them.

So, we talked about some of the processes that people go through, how do you close one of these meetings? Personally, this is my selfish question, I find that to always be the most awkward part of these types of meetings that I just sort of look at the person I'm like, "Okay. All right. We're done now. Time to go."

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. Right. So, you're not alone. A lot of people struggle with that. And the fact is these meetings need a more proper close. You know, with two or three minutes left, the manager has to stop and say, "All right. Before we end, let's recap. Let's identify the action items that I have and what your takeaways are. Are we all on the same page? And let's identify the things that we want to park and talk about in our next one-on-one." Those are the three core pieces of a proper closing.

And then, it has to be documented. And what's really interesting, Nikki, is that the research strongly shows that when a manager takes out a notebook and their pen and they start writing in a notebook, it's a signal to the employee that, "Wow. They really took this seriously." There's something very different that seems to be triggered when you see someone jotting down notes of what was talked about. So, this is a way of just bringing the conversation together.

And I would argue that the close, it is essential to get that right. And no one should leave their one-on-one wondering what was decided. It should be clear to all parties. So, that's part of the new habit. You know, the habit is three minutes before the meeting is done, you start the close.

Nikki Miller:

This is something that I took away that's a non-negotiable moving forward with my team, is getting agreement in the recap too. You talk about this in the book and I think this is so important, and I'm sure every manager listening to this can resonate, I can't tell you how many meetings I had where I always say I had one meeting and a team member had a different meeting. We were just in two totally different meetings somehow. And had I recapped it more efficiently, I would have realized that sooner, not realizing after the fact, no, that's not at all what I thought we talked about, or not at all the agreement that I thought we came to, or not at all the action item I thought we had.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Yeah. You're so right. I mean, it's amazing how many conversations people leave with completely different messages. I mean, it's just a funny part of human nature. So, yeah, this is designed to help prevent that. And then, you know, we can enter these notes into perhaps a shared Google Doc or something like that. And then, over the course of the time between one-on-ones, people might add to it, they might ask questions and you can provide some answers. So, this document that can be created associated with all your various directs can actually be a more natural way of monitoring progress on different tasks. You know, once there's clarity on priorities, then the direct can do updates on the various priorities in that shared document, as opposed to the conversation. And then, only if there's a problem, there could be a conversation.

You know, meetings went up in frequency greatly with COVID. And a lot of it was due to managerial insecurity, namely, they felt that with a remote workpforce, leadership and management looked like just checking in with people, constantly asking them "What's going on with this task? What's going on with this task?" And they started just over meeting as a result. And so, we need to dial that back. People really don't need that, but they do need meaningful connections, and we do need to start leveraging other technologies to monitor work. And unless there's a problem, what do we need to get into the weeds for? Let's manage outcomes. If the employee is producing the outcomes that are necessary, we should be pleased. We don't have to get into the weeds on everything.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, I love that. I'm going to tag that, manage outcomes and not the weeds. I also think this is so helpful for you as a manager to have this running document because I've always done notes in my one-on-ones because I don't know about you, Steven, but I just forget, like I just forget what we talked about. There's so much in this brain that I just will completely forget, not because it doesn't matter, there's just so much information flowing through.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Oh, my gosh. You're so right. And one of my favorite ways of starting a one-on-one is when a manager says, "You know, Nikki, I remember you said that you were working on X, how's that going?" When you do that in a follow up meeting, that conveys, that is another one of those signals that you actually care, that you listened, that you prepared. And so, we do need to document in some way. We do forget and that's okay, but we have basic technologies that will allow us to not forget.

And if you think about each of us personally, I mean, think about how special we feel when our manager just remembers our birthday or remember something with our kids, we just feel seen. We don't feel like just a piece of the puzzle. And so, when we take these notes, we draw some connections, you could just imagine the value of one-on-ones keeps increasing more and more and more. And this is also why the monthly cadence doesn't work as well, because it doesn't create that continuity. But once you start going with one-on-ones, and you do them right - oh, my gosh - you'll see the value, oh, it just explodes.

Nikki Miller:

I'm so excited to take some of these principles back to my own team. And I know our listeners are going to be so excited to use this because, like we talked about at the very beginning, I think this is one of the most undervalued, underutilized, and undertaught places of leadership. And so, I'm so thrilled for everyone to get to read the book.

And I want to keep you here all day because I have even more questions. And we always ask at the end of this podcast, Steven, what's the one thing, if someone could take one thing from this podcast, our listeners could take one thing from our time together, what's the one thing that you would want to take away from our conversation or for one-on-one meetings in general?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Sure. That one-on-ones are not an optional activity. It is your time to truly be the leader that you want to be. It's the one time where you can express your values of elevating others. And here's the added benefit, when you look at the research on life satisfaction, one of the greatest predictors of life satisfaction is helping other people. So that, to me, is the key takeaway, that one-on-ones are a mechanism to help others, and by doing so, lead a rich and meaningful life. And the added bonus is that everyone's more productive, everyone's more effective, and it all reflects well on you as a manager.

Nikki Miller:

Well, Steven, you must be very satisfied because you are out there helping a lot of people, myself included today, so thank you. And I wish you would share with our audience also how you're helping even more through this book. It was a little tidbit you shared with me and I'm going to put you on the spot and have you share with everybody else, but this book wasn't just written for you, it's really written to help and I know the proceeds are all going to charity. Can you share a little bit about that?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

So, I do the science and I write these books because I want them to be useful and valuable and help people realize their full potential. And I hate asking people to buy my book, even though I really want them to buy my book. And to address that, it just I'm donating every penny I'm making from it to the American Cancer Society, and I hope that that makes it even easier for folks to get this information. So, you can buy the book if you want to learn about one-on-ones, you can buy the book if you want to help the American Cancer Society. But the one thing I can guarantee you, the better you do your one-on-ones, your leadership journey will only improve.

Nikki Miller:

So true. Thank you so much, Steven, for being here today. If people want to connect with you, where's the best place for them to find you?

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

So, I have a very strong LinkedIn presence, so you can find me on LinkedIn at Steven Rogelberg. My website is just a resource center, that's kind of how I designed it, so if you go to stevenrogelberg.com, stevenrogelberg.com, I just have various HBR articles I've written, I have tools and all kinds of things I think could be helpful. Also, my email is on there and I'm very happy to chat with folks who have questions. You know, I do the science because I want to get the science out there. And so, I'm very happy to help those who reach out and have some concerns or worries or, you know, just some inquiries.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I'm going to remind you that you offered that when our audience is all reaching out on how to do their one-on-ones better. I have a feeling you're going to be getting some inquiries from this. Thank you so much for being here. This was enormously helpful to me. I know it's going to be extremely helpful to our audience. And I'm so thrilled for them to get the book. Glad We Met comes out January 9th, and I'm so thrilled for y'all to read it. It's just really an incredible resource, and I know it's going to be a staple for me moving forward. So, thank you so much, Steven, for the book and for being here today.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg:

Thank you. I really appreciate it, Nikki.

Nikki Miller:

See everybody next time.

Outro:

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