Dan Martell - How to Conduct a 1 on 1 Meeting With Your Direct Reports

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur,

00:00:01.840 investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.520 In this episode, I'm going to share with you

00:00:05.320 how to conduct your one-on-one meetings

00:00:07.160 with your direct reports, and including the agenda

00:00:10.400 and the questions you should be asking.

00:00:11.880 And be sure to stay at the end where we're

00:00:13.320 going to tell you how to get access to my one-on-one meeting

00:00:16.080 planner worksheet so that you can quickly outline

00:00:19.760 using the framework I'm going to teach in this episode

00:00:22.200 with your direct reports.

00:00:30.000 So what's interesting for me is as I coach 100 plus software

00:00:40.020 founders that are doing between $1 million and $10 million

00:00:42.320 in ARR, is many of them don't understand where

00:00:44.880 one-on-one meetings fit into the world.

00:00:46.800 Yet when I ask them if they've ever experienced these symptoms

00:00:49.260 of having people underperform that

00:00:51.200 used to be really good performers or having someone

00:00:53.900 quit unexpectedly on their team or feeling frustrated

00:00:57.960 that you know somebody could be getting more out

00:01:00.700 of the person, but they're just not showing up the way

00:01:03.480 you want them to.

00:01:04.440 Those are all things that one-on-ones

00:01:06.240 are designed to resolve.

00:01:07.920 If you don't trust me, I mean, I got this from Andy Grove

00:01:10.660 over a decade ago, who was the founder and CEO of Intel.

00:01:13.920 He wrote a book called High Output Management.

00:01:16.740 Highly recommend it.

00:01:18.000 And in the book, he dedicates a whole chapter to one-on-ones.

00:01:20.900 He said many times, like, one or two hours invested

00:01:23.880 in one of your direct reports can

00:01:25.860 produce two weeks of high output management

00:01:29.400 from that individual.

00:01:31.160 Ben Horwitz from Andreessen Horwitz

00:01:33.580 talks about it in Hard Things About Hard Things,

00:01:36.720 where he says that he's fired people for not

00:01:39.420 managers, for not doing their one-on-ones.

00:01:41.640 And even Jason Lemkin from Sastafame talks about it,

00:01:44.580 where he says that one-on-ones are the most powerful tool

00:01:47.980 a founder has to really align with their executive

00:01:51.580 leadership team.

00:01:52.480 So these are all things that I've experienced.

00:01:54.520 I mean, just a few examples.

00:01:56.140 Mark on my team back in one of my previous companies,

00:01:59.540 he was an incredible leader in the marketing team.

00:02:02.620 And then he just started not performing

00:02:04.620 and started not showing up on the meetings in the same way.

00:02:06.900 And there was nothing I could really point to other

00:02:09.080 than his vibe was off.

00:02:10.240 And it went on for a couple of weeks

00:02:11.720 until finally I just sat down with him

00:02:13.120 and I went through the kind of the one-on-one framework

00:02:14.880 I'm going to share with you guys today.

00:02:16.360 And I discovered he was going through a divorce.

00:02:18.680 And I'll tell you, if I didn't know that aspect of his life,

00:02:21.080 if I didn't create the space to have that conversation,

00:02:23.200 It would have been easy for me to just start criticizing

00:02:25.580 and holding them accountable to metrics, whatever,

00:02:29.460 having aggressive, just not being happy.

00:02:33.080 And I don't know if you've ever put somebody on a short lease

00:02:35.860 or all of a sudden now you're micromanaging somebody

00:02:38.560 when truly we need to first, Stephen Covey says,

00:02:41.360 in the seven habits of highly affected people,

00:02:43.500 we need to first seek to understand before we're

00:02:45.280 understood.

00:02:46.240 And that, to me, it creates the one-on-ones,

00:02:48.340 create the space for that kind of conversation.

00:02:50.080 Or I had another one of one of my developers, Ryan.

00:02:54.520 He was promoted to lead engineer.

00:02:58.360 And all of a sudden, now he had management people

00:03:00.220 and blah, blah, blah.

00:03:00.940 As I'm doing over 101, I'm talking to him.

00:03:03.580 I ask him, how do you feel about your new role?

00:03:06.280 And he shares with me that he's just not happy.

00:03:08.560 That he's a developer.

00:03:10.160 He loves to code.

00:03:10.960 He loves to solve problems.

00:03:12.060 He wants to do that.

00:03:13.260 And what's crazy is we thought he wanted that career path,

00:03:18.100 the team and I.

00:03:19.460 And we created that space.

00:03:20.720 And then once he got there, he realized,

00:03:23.060 I'm better as an individual contributor.

00:03:24.940 So understanding how to have that meeting,

00:03:27.560 creating the cadence for it is going

00:03:29.380 to change your leadership style.

00:03:31.540 So let's get into the five strategies

00:03:33.140 to help you do that properly.

00:03:34.520 Number one, meeting flow.

00:03:36.480 So one of the things that you need to have

00:03:39.200 is a process for having your one-on-ones.

00:03:41.020 If not, it's just essentially a conversation

00:03:42.800 that you have, water cooler conversation, a walk and talk.

00:03:45.820 But what I like to do is these four things.

00:03:47.860 I call it CIAF.

00:03:49.560 It's the one-on-one quadrant framework, CIAF.

00:03:53.360 They stand for these things.

00:03:54.480 Connection.

00:03:55.020 Connection is about building rapport and relationship

00:03:57.580 with the person and asking them questions about their life

00:04:00.180 and then inviting them, potentially,

00:04:01.740 if you ask about them, they're going to ask about you,

00:04:03.620 to create some connection and relationship.

00:04:05.960 I is all about inspiration.

00:04:07.980 Inspiration is about understanding

00:04:10.220 where they want to go in their career

00:04:12.140 and helping inspire them to progress to the next level.

00:04:17.020 Maslow's hierarchy of needs at the highest level of needs

00:04:19.960 after you get food, water, shelter, et cetera,

00:04:22.020 is self-actualization.

00:04:23.800 That's what people want to feel they're

00:04:26.120 getting from their role in your company.

00:04:28.460 If you don't do that, it's going to be really hard

00:04:30.200 to get them to perform.

00:04:31.980 The third is all about alignment,

00:04:34.480 understanding what they believe their priorities are

00:04:38.280 and what you think their priorities are

00:04:40.300 and making sure that those are aligned so that you do that

00:04:43.960 right.

00:04:44.220 And then the fourth is feedback.

00:04:46.060 And feedback, for me, is a little different

00:04:49.240 than what most people think.

00:04:50.200 It's getting feedback for you as a leader.

00:04:53.520 So if you're watching this and you have direct reports,

00:04:55.980 you need to ask them, how have I been showing up

00:04:59.240 as a boss for you?

00:05:00.680 Because that's where the feedback comes into play.

00:05:02.980 And it's both ways.

00:05:03.800 It's performance.

00:05:04.540 If you do those four things, C-I-A-F, 0.78

00:05:07.940 you will have a great one-on-one meeting.

00:05:10.420 And they can be short, 20 minutes, five minutes

00:05:12.420 for each section, have your questions ready to go.

00:05:14.680 but we're going to dive into the specific principles

00:05:17.240 that you need to make sure that they're even better.

00:05:20.440 Number two, capture at agenda.

00:05:22.780 So at agenda is at sign, agenda.

00:05:26.340 Where does this come from?

00:05:27.280 I read a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen.

00:05:30.460 And in there, he talked about the at agenda concept,

00:05:32.480 where what you want to do is for everybody

00:05:34.900 that you interact with frequently in your life,

00:05:37.120 you should have an agenda doc that you just add points

00:05:41.080 to their name.

00:05:41.840 So at agenda is the name of the doc,

00:05:43.640 And then I'll have all my direct reports, for example,

00:05:46.160 have their names.

00:05:46.880 And then I'll add things that I want to talk to them about

00:05:49.580 or potentially coach them on to that list.

00:05:52.040 And I use that to guide my one-on-one meetings.

00:05:55.160 And the reason why is because I don't

00:05:56.660 think that you should be interrupting your direct leaders,

00:05:59.960 your management, unless it's project related, for sure.

00:06:02.300 But if it's like a queue, let's say

00:06:03.860 you saw somebody get over reactive in a meeting

00:06:06.980 or you heard from somebody else that this happened,

00:06:09.800 I would just add it to the add agenda item.

00:06:11.660 And then that way, when you're sitting down with them,

00:06:13.620 You can ask them about that.

00:06:15.640 Hey, how did you feel you handled this situation?

00:06:18.580 You don't criticize.

00:06:19.560 You just create the space to get some feedback

00:06:21.420 around that specific question.

00:06:22.940 But you do it using the at agenda doc.

00:06:25.480 I just use a Google doc.

00:06:26.740 And you just add everybody that reports to you

00:06:28.380 and just put some bullet lists under their names.

00:06:30.480 When you have your one-on-ones, you clear it out, delete it,

00:06:32.900 and then you just keep appending it for the next meeting.

00:06:35.160 Minimum, you should be having your one-on-one meetings

00:06:36.920 every month.

00:06:37.800 If you're growing really fast, then more frequent,

00:06:40.080 maybe every two weeks.

00:06:41.020 And if you're growing like super fast 30 plus percent

00:06:43.460 per month, like a lot of my clients,

00:06:44.980 you want to be doing them weekly.

00:06:47.000 And those are not weekly syncs.

00:06:48.760 Those are not strategic meetings.

00:06:50.620 Those are using the CIAF strategy

00:06:54.220 so that you just build that space or create the space

00:06:57.260 for you to connect and kind of tweak and move things forward.

00:07:00.700 Number three, skip a level.

00:07:02.320 So this is a one-on-one skip a level meeting.

00:07:05.020 So if you have direct reports and then they

00:07:06.800 have their own direct reports, you

00:07:08.660 want to actually skip a level, go to their direct report.

00:07:11.000 Now, this is not for you to undermine your manager.

00:07:13.880 You want to go through the same process,

00:07:15.840 but you're trying to accomplish, or the real of the three

00:07:17.840 benefits of doing that are three things.

00:07:19.740 Number one, you want to get some feedback on your manager.

00:07:23.380 I think it's really important as a leader,

00:07:25.340 if you're leading somebody, to get a 360 view.

00:07:27.680 You have your interactions with them

00:07:29.160 and maybe the other direct reports with that individual,

00:07:31.220 but then you also want to have feedback

00:07:32.940 from their direct reports so that you can get some context

00:07:35.700 and get a real good 360 view.

00:07:37.760 So that's one benefit.

00:07:39.080 The second one is frontline information.

00:07:42.000 So if you're talking to people in customer support

00:07:44.960 or in product development or engineering or sales

00:07:47.460 or marketing, you're going to get frontline feedback

00:07:50.360 on how the market's responding or how this thing's going on

00:07:54.420 or what's the support volume looking like or et cetera

00:07:57.380 so that you can just get more information to help guide

00:08:00.040 your team.

00:08:01.420 And then the third is an opportunity to mentor.

00:08:03.740 I think that one of the greatest things and privileges

00:08:07.400 that you have as a founder as you build a team

00:08:10.060 is those people, you're responsible for their employment 0.53

00:08:13.760 and they're looking up to you.

00:08:14.900 And a well-timed, well-said cue, conversation, suggestion,

00:08:25.360 belief in that individual, shared with that individual

00:08:28.760 can have a dramatic impact.

00:08:31.380 And I think it's a really great opportunity for you

00:08:33.200 to mentor and show up as a mentor to that individual

00:08:36.400 to have an impact in the rest of the organization

00:08:38.980 by sharing those insights and beliefs with them.

00:08:41.700 So skip a line is the concept of skipping past your direct

00:08:45.140 reports and trying to do that with individuals that

00:08:47.540 might be frontline workers.

00:08:49.060 Number four, connect the future.

00:08:51.220 Here's what I've learned.

00:08:52.520 If people are quitting on you, they're

00:08:55.900 either quitting for two reasons.

00:08:57.320 One, they're quitting their boss.

00:08:59.080 Most people don't quit a company, they quit their boss.

00:09:01.400 And two is they feel they've run out of future

00:09:04.640 with you and your organization.

00:09:06.020 If an individual does not have a vision for their role

00:09:10.340 and how that's going to progress over time,

00:09:16.100 then they'll start looking at other opportunities

00:09:18.340 because they don't understand how what they're doing today

00:09:20.780 is going to mature into something more interesting,

00:09:23.420 more meaningful.

00:09:24.380 And usually after two to three years,

00:09:26.180 people are going to start being antsy

00:09:27.900 because they've learned some new skills.

00:09:29.540 They've acquired some new abilities.

00:09:31.620 They've produced more.

00:09:33.200 They're more capable and they're wanting

00:09:36.420 to be rewarded for that.

00:09:37.740 And if they can't find that within your organization,

00:09:39.740 they're going to find it exterior.

00:09:41.400 And that's why we have that inspirational checklist

00:09:45.760 in the one-on-one meeting format so that you can ask them

00:09:49.220 about their career objectives and their goals

00:09:50.980 and the missing skills that they need to develop

00:09:52.920 so that you can build a plan for them to achieve that.

00:09:55.740 Number five, your performance.

00:09:57.960 As I mentioned earlier, one of the things

00:09:59.800 that is so valuable to get from your one-on-ones

00:10:02.300 because it really creates a safe place for them

00:10:05.360 to have that conversation is to just prompt and say, hey,

00:10:08.760 if you were me, what's one thing you

00:10:10.620 would change in our organization?

00:10:12.180 Or do you have any questions for me

00:10:14.760 about the product shifts we made last month?

00:10:16.960 Or how am I showing up for you as a leader?

00:10:24.300 What do you need from me to better lead and manage

00:10:27.420 your initiatives, your projects?

00:10:28.680 Or is there any decision that I've made recently

00:10:31.180 that you don't understand completely

00:10:32.920 and would love to ask me about.

00:10:34.900 So those are all really just opportunities

00:10:37.060 to get feedback from your direct reports,

00:10:39.460 to take that into consideration.

00:10:41.080 I'm not saying that that gives them an open list of,

00:10:43.340 here are all the 15 things that I want from you.

00:10:45.040 Please get it done by Monday.

00:10:46.060 That's not what I'm saying.

00:10:47.180 I'm just saying create the space and the opportunity

00:10:50.300 for somebody to feel safe.

00:10:51.240 Because a lot of times, they'll say, no, you're great.

00:10:53.180 That's amazing, especially in a group setting.

00:10:55.180 But you actually want to say things like, hey,

00:10:57.420 I'm only going to get better if I

00:10:59.460 get real, candid, honest feedback from my team,

00:11:02.780 and that's you.

00:11:04.080 And I would really love your feedback

00:11:06.180 on what's one or two things that you

00:11:07.820 think I might want to consider so that I can become a better

00:11:10.920 leader for the team and for yourself.

00:11:13.080 And there's nothing you could say

00:11:14.300 that's going to hurt my feelings.

00:11:15.540 I'm asking for the feedback.

00:11:18.000 Would love to hear what you think.

00:11:19.780 And you got to say it from that perspective

00:11:21.660 because they might be shy.

00:11:23.300 And the opportunity for you to grow,

00:11:25.160 to become the person who can grow the business

00:11:27.720 to the next level and lead that company

00:11:30.080 is going to come from that answer.

00:11:32.000 So quick recap, five strategies to conduct your one-on-one

00:11:35.040 meetings.

00:11:35.540 Number one, the meeting flow, CIAF.

00:11:39.220 Number two, capture at agenda.

00:11:41.140 Make that list so you capture that real time to bring up.

00:11:43.640 Number three, skip a level meetings

00:11:45.660 to understand the manager, the front line feedback,

00:11:48.520 and potentially mentor.

00:11:50.120 Number four, connect the future, because if they run out

00:11:53.120 of future, they will go look somewhere else.

00:11:54.960 And number five, your performance.

00:11:56.960 Get the feedback from them on how you're doing

00:11:59.520 and also on give them some cues on how they can be better

00:12:02.840 as well.

00:12:03.640 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:12:05.260 I want to share with you my one-on-one meeting planner.

00:12:08.060 The link is below, so you can click that

00:12:09.740 to download your copy.

00:12:11.240 But in it, I walk you through making a list of all

00:12:14.320 your direct reports.

00:12:15.200 Ideally, you don't have more than six to seven.

00:12:17.640 Some of you guys probably have 12 to 15.

00:12:19.880 You might want to fix that.

00:12:20.840 But anyways, make a list of all your direct reports

00:12:23.520 And then using the connection, the inspiration, the alignment,

00:12:28.500 and feedback columns, you'll write down

00:12:30.660 the two things for each one of those direct reports

00:12:32.320 you want to bring up in your conversation,

00:12:34.340 and then create the space by scheduling it in the calendar

00:12:37.820 at least monthly with those people

00:12:39.700 to have those conversations.

00:12:41.060 And you can use that meeting planner to do that.

00:12:42.720 The link is below, so click that to download your copy.

00:12:45.400 If you like this video, be sure to softly tap the Like button.

00:12:48.700 Subscribe to my channel if there's anybody

00:12:50.760 that you feel this video could serve.

00:12:52.700 Feel free to share with them directly.

00:12:54.200 And as for usual, I want to challenge

00:12:55.580 you to live a bigger life and a bigger business.

00:12:57.620 And I'll see you next Monday.

00:13:00.640 How to conduct.

00:13:01.660 Oh, this is so good.

00:13:03.040 So good.

00:13:03.860 So good.

Dan Martell - November 25, 2019

How to Conduct a 1 on 1 Meeting With Your Direct Reports

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