Some ideas how great managers run their 1 on 1s.
Also do consider doing a Walk n’ Talk. Once in a while. Just go outside and do the 1 on 1 in the park.
Generic questions
- How do you feel?
- How do you feel in your team?
- How do you feel in the company? (Meetings, etc pp)
- How does decision X work for you?
- Is there anything I can help you with?
- How are your OKRs going?
Ideas from Bill Campbell (Management 1 on 1s)
Example how Bill Campell (coach Google) recommended doing 1:1s (more targeted towards management):
- Performance on job requirements
- a. Could be sales figures
- b. Could be product delivery or product milestones
- c. Could be customer feedback or product quality
- d. Could be budget numbers
- Relationship with peer groups (critical for company integration and cohesiveness)
- a. Product and Engineering
- b. Marketing and Product
- c. Sales and Engineering
- Management/Leadership
- a. Are you guiding/coaching your people?
- b. Are you weeding out the bad ones?
- c. Are you working hard at hiring?
- d. Are you able to get your people to do heroic things?
- Innovation (Best Practices)
- a. Are you constantly moving ahead … thinking about how to continually get better?
- b. Are you constantly evaluating new technologies, new products, new practices?
- c. Do you measure yourself vs. the best in the industry/world?
from Schmidt, Eric. How Google Works (pp. 192-193). John Murray Press.
Ideas from Camille "Manager's Path" Fournier
- What do you like best/worst about the project you are working on?
- Who on your team has been doing really well recently?
- Do you have any feedback about your manager — what’s going well, what isn’t?
- What changes do you think we could make to the product?
- Are there any opportunities you think we might be missing?
- How do you think the organization is doing overall?
- Anything we could be doing better/more/less?
- Are there any areas of the business strategy you don’t understand?
- What’s keeping you from doing your best work right now? How happy (or not) are you working at the company?
- What could we do to make working at the company more fun?
from Fournier, Camille. The Manager's Path (p. 129). O'Reilly Media.