How to Create High-Impact One-on-One’s with Your Team
Hey Founder,
If you’re like me, you came of professional age thinking that the most you could expect from a one-on-one with your boss or direct report was some personal chat, followed up by a review of what you/they were up to at work, including priorities etc. There’s nothing wrong with this approach to one-on-ones, but I think we’ve found a way to make them far more … inspirational.
The way to do this is to ground them in purpose—the company’s purpose, the department’s purpose and the individual purposes of you and your team. Think in terms of concentric circles of purpose. As I outline for you how we do it, it will help to keep in mind that this process takes all of 10-15 minutes tops at the beginning of the one-on-one.
First, we ground our meeting in our company’s purpose, which at ScalePassion is to radically evolve capitalism. Next, we review the purpose of the “department” or discipline of our business. So if I'm talking to the Head of Inspiration, for example, Steve Klinetobe, we quickly review how the storytelling purpose of ScalePassion is capturing and articulating the fire and soul of our company and our clients. In my one-on-one with Nick Van Nice, our Personal Leadership Coach, the purpose is to help ScalePassion clients live their personal purpose with integrity and be a positive influence. Then, we shift to our personal purposes. Nick's personal purpose is to coach leaders to live in their purpose with integrity. Steve's personal purpose is to ignite purpose through storytelling. My personal purpose is scaling impact, both through leaders and through their companies.
After establishing our purpose, we review personality assessment results such as Enneagram or Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius evaluation method. This reminds both of us that the person sitting across from us is very likely different from us: some thrive on detail, while others are quick off the starting line; some don’t respond well to pressure, while others absolutely need to be pushed a bit harder—and even welcome it!
Next, we move to OKRs, beginning with personal OKRs—it is absolutely my role as the leader to understand what my teammate is trying to accomplish personally. This can be very personal– e.g., losing weight to get their energy right, making more money etc.—or it can be more from a career development perspective–e.g. building a new skill, taking a class, or reading a book. I may sit atop the Leadership Totem Pole, but I'm only as good as the leaders who work with me or report to me. So I want to do everything I can to help them reach their personal goals, especially if it has to do with finding their purpose, energy focus, and growth mindset. Only then do we talk about business OKRs–those commitments my teammate has made to advance the company’s mission and goals.
Again, this takes around 15 minutes. Afterwards, I can focus on how I can support them in their work. We spend the rest of the meeting making agreements on what should be done and by whom, and put all of this in our meeting notes to follow-up at the agreed upon time. This system of one-on-ones creates exceptional continuity over time, but it also allows for continual adjustments on the OKRs.
To get started, don’t worry about having everything fully baked. You may not have nailed your and your teams’ purposes down to the point where you can quickly cover off on them. I’ve certainly worked with members of my own teams or with clients who were very much in the earlier stages of nailing their purpose and passion. But the sooner you begin to weave this into your one-on-one meetings, the sooner you will begin to radiate that energy that you need to achieve alignment with, and among, your team.
Give yourself a running start by reading Gay Hendricks’ The Genius Zone or the aforementioned Working Genius by Lencioni. Then, use this link to adapt our free one-on-one dashboard template to your meetings. And remember that ScalePassion stands at the ready to help you scale your passion and purpose in your change-the-world company.
Sincerely,
