Running Effective 1 1s

# Running Effective 1:1s - All Guest Insights

*7 guests, 10 mentions*

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## Hilary Gridley
*Hilary Gridley*

> "In my one on ones, and I'm checking in with people, I'm asking them, 'What do you do for joy? Are you doing something every single day that's bringing you joy in your life?' And if they say no, I'm like, 'That's a problem. What are we going to do about that? And do you even know what those things are?'"

**Insight:** 1:1s should be used to monitor an employee's 'recovery' and joy to ensure long-term high performance.

**Tactical advice:**
- Ask reports directly about what brings them joy outside of work.
- Treat a lack of daily joy as a performance risk that needs a plan.
- Help reports identify their 'behavioral activations'—small actions that reliably lift their mood.

*Timestamp: 01:17:13*


## Howie Liu
*Howie Liu*

> "I actually cut my one-on-one roster by default, and the idea is not that I don't want to spend time one-on-one with people, but rather that I found that the ... Just having more standing one-on-ones actually precludes me from engaging in more timely topics."

**Insight:** Move away from rigid weekly rituals toward high-quality, relationship-building catch-ups and urgency-driven topical meetings.

**Tactical advice:**
- Cut standing 1:1 rosters to free up time for timely, insight-driven topics
- Use a barbell approach: high-quality, less frequent relationship catch-ups (e.g., monthly coffee walks) vs. urgent topical meetings

*Timestamp: 00:16:41*


## Kim Scott
*Kim Scott*

> "I think one of the really important things that all managers can do for their direct reports to show that they care is to have real meaningful career conversations, where you talk about their life story... I would have three separate 45 minute conversations, so one about their past, one about their future, their dreams for the future... Then the third conversation is to sort of sit down with your director report and come up with a career action plan."

**Insight:** Managers should dedicate specific 1:1 time to deep career development conversations beyond tactical updates.

**Tactical advice:**
- Conduct a 'Life Story' conversation to understand what motivates the employee.
- Conduct a 'Future Dreams' conversation to identify 3-4 long-term career visions.
- Create a 'Career Action Plan' to map current skill-building to those future dreams.

*Timestamp: 00:33:31*

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> "The question that I like to ask is, 'What could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me?'... you want to think about who you're going to ask that question of, and if everybody can write down their question, who they're going to ask it of and then pop it into their calendar right now, this will be one of the most productive podcasts in all of podcast land."

**Insight:** Leaders must proactively solicit criticism to build trust and improve their own performance.

**Tactical advice:**
- Ask a specific 'go-to' question that invites criticism rather than a generic 'Do you have feedback?'.
- Embrace a 6-second silence after asking to force the other person to answer.
- Reward the feedback by fixing the problem or explaining why you disagree.

*Timestamp: 00:37:35*


## Matt Mochary
*Matt Mochary*

> "With each and every person on the stay team, you have a one-on-one with their manager for one hour and all the manager does is say, 'I'd like to know your thoughts and feelings,' and the person shares and then all the manager does is make them feel heard."

**Insight:** Post-crisis 1:1s should focus entirely on active listening and emotional processing to stabilize the remaining team.

**Tactical advice:**
- Dedicate a full hour to 1:1s following major organizational changes.
- Focus the agenda entirely on the report's thoughts and feelings rather than status updates.

*Timestamp: 00:51:34*


## Petra Wille
*Petra Wille*

> "Get yourself a list of great questions that you could ask in one on ones if you don't have the time to prepare. That will