Our Secret Formula for 1-on-1 Meetings with Ben Pickard

[00:00:00] 1, 2, 3, [00:00:05] 4. Welcome to The Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help gym and [00:00:10] studio owners create a business and a life they love. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. [00:00:15] Join me and the business unicorns team each week for actionable advice, expert [00:00:20] insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym.

Get ready to [00:00:25] unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry.[00:00:30] [00:00:35]

Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? [00:00:40] Welcome to another episode of The Business Unicorns podcast, and today I’m here with a man, [00:00:45] Ben. Mr. Pickard, how the hell are you? I’m good. How are you? I’m so good. [00:00:50] I’m so good. Can we start with a real personal win in our friendship that’s It’s coming up [00:00:55] soon. That we just learned about recently.

Oh yeah. I’m being really shady about it because [00:01:00] I want you to spill the beans. We’re doing something together for the first time coming up. First time for me. [00:01:05] Time for me is the first time we’ve done it together. That’s true. You tell our listeners about it. [00:01:10] I am going to my very first Broadway show. And I talking about so [00:01:15] every, yes, congratulations are in order to us.

I had it that I don’t like plays. [00:01:20] And then Michael had such good things to say about the Harry Potter. [00:01:25] Yeah. Theatrical experience. Yeah. Play doesn’t seem to do it justice. I’m sure that’s [00:01:30] not the right word. Anyways. And it blew my fucking mind. It was amazing. So good. [00:01:35] Yeah. And I’m like, holy shit. Do I like a different medium of entertainment?

And anyways, we, every year we go [00:01:40] to Michael’s house to do annual planning. You’ve heard us talk about quarterly planning. Annual planning is just. Super quarterly [00:01:45] planning. Michael’s Stranger Things is on Broadway to plan on Thursday night, which is when I’m at his [00:01:50] house. Should we go see Stranger Things?

I’m like, oh my God, I wanna go see Stranger Things. I’m gonna go to my first Broadway show [00:01:55] and it’s an interesting, I’m excited obviously, but it’s also an interesting experience of, I [00:02:00] legitimately asked a question around, are there cultural norms I need to know about? Is there a dress code? I have no idea what [00:02:05] to expect.

It’s not that different. I’ve never had a trainer before. What do I do? [00:02:10] Yeah. Um, that’s a whole nother thing. Yeah. I’m so excited and theaters is such a huge part of [00:02:15] my life and Mark Fisher’s life. Both of our spouses work or have worked on Broadway [00:02:20] for a decade. We see shows all the time. We grew up doing theater, and I know a lot of people have a, [00:02:25] like sour taste in their mouth when it comes to like plays or musicals, but I promise y.[00:02:30]

They’re not all created equal. There’s some stuff that really fun, cool, cutting edge [00:02:35] stuff that happens on stages and there’s some boring ass shit too, but I love that [00:02:40] something like Harry Potter or something like Stranger Things, which for those of you who watch the Netflix series, [00:02:45] both have stage versions now and the the one that is Stranger Things is [00:02:50] really cool.

There’s so much like stage magic and it’s scary as hell and it’s a prequel. [00:02:55] To the actual show on Netflix. So I’m just so stoked and I get to be Ben’s [00:03:00] Sherpa to his first Broadway show. I’m stoked about it and I just realized now [00:03:05] I think I’d pretty good at keeping an open mind with new things like my default [00:03:10] interest and your default interest, or for the most part, very little overlap.

Yep. But I’m also like [00:03:15] down to try shit and I think, I actually don’t have it that I don’t like theater stuff [00:03:20] because when I was younger, I remember my parents taking me to, if you happen to live in Southern Ontario. [00:03:25] Stratford for Shakespeare related stuff. Yeah. And I get, there’s probably some [00:03:30] 14 year olds out there who are into Shakespeare.

I was not one of those people. Very few. [00:03:35] But then you go see, like I saw The Lion King that I thought was cool and I was probably in my teenager. Yeah. And [00:03:40] Harry Potter blew my damn mind. It was like, how the hell did they do that? But I’m captivated by the story. I gotta pay [00:03:45] attention and I expect this. It is better than CGI.

Christopher Nolan would approve. He’s anti [00:03:50] CGI. Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah. I think it’s just a good example of even [00:03:55] though our inherent interests and our upbringing are so different, we’re both so game to try things and like those are [00:04:00] the kind of friends I want in my life. The ones that are gonna introduce me to things I’ve never done before, and [00:04:05] let me introduce them to things they’ve done before.

Sign me up for those kind of friendships all And so far, you’re betting a [00:04:10] thousand. I can’t think of too many things. You took me to my first drag show. It was Riot. That’s true. [00:04:15] Loved it. Awkward at first, but loved it. You sure we’re supposed to give them dollar bills? That seems demeaning be [00:04:20] like, no, that’s how it works.

Yes, that’s how good theater for sure. Yeah. There’s probably a couple as I can’t think of, but it’s [00:04:25] so far, it’s like they’ve all. Yeah, I think I’m just more assertive, [00:04:30] but I’ll do all the things. You want me to go camping and kayaking and I do riding motorcycles, but [00:04:35] not your kind of motorcycle, and so I’m happy to go do all the things.

Teach me how to drive that big tractor thing. You [00:04:40] got. I’m ready. I don’t know what it’s called, but it looks fun. I think you’d You’d [00:04:45] love it a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. But that’s amazing. So anyway, I just wanted to share this milestone with [00:04:50] all of you. So you’re used to hearing, Ben and I talk on this podcast, but it’s a real milestone in our [00:04:55] relationship.

We’ll report back after we go see Stranger Things and give you a full review, a whole [00:05:00] episode that’ll really resonate with our listeners. Yeah. So really love it. Listen, there’s a lot of people who [00:05:05] probably watch the TV show and love it, so they’ll be curious to know if the stage show is. I [00:05:10] recommend you do.

You’re absolutely missing out. It is captivating. It is wonderfully done. It’s so good. [00:05:15] Metallica music is in it. It’s 10 outta 10. Yeah, it’s, it’s really great. Especially if you [00:05:20] love that genre of like eighties sci-fi horror kind of stuff. It’s like, it’s right in that lane. [00:05:25] Anyway, thanks for letting us go on this.

What is a five, five minute and 22nd tangent [00:05:30] about theater? Now onto the main show for today. So one of the [00:05:35] things we wanna talk about today, and we haven’t talked about this for a while, but I think it’s a really important, maybe key [00:05:40] skillset for all you managers and leaders out there, is how to conduct really good [00:05:45] one-on-one meetings.

I’ve said on this podcast again and again, and I will keep saying it [00:05:50] again and again, that I don’t think you can be a good manager or a leader. I’ll [00:05:55] use the word manager for this moment. ’cause this is what really we’re talking about. You can’t be a great manager [00:06:00] unless you have regular, consistent touch points with the people you manage that have a clear [00:06:05] agenda and a clear purpose, and they happen consistently, same time.

Every week or [00:06:10] out every other week. It’s just a critical part of building that relationship of [00:06:15] the people that you work with and you manage and it’s better, it’s good for both of you, but there has to be [00:06:20] real structure and purpose to it. And there are great one-on-one meetings and there are horrible, terrible, [00:06:25] no one loves them one-on-one meetings.

And we wanna talk to this podcast just for the [00:06:30] next whatever, 15, 20 minutes. About what makes a really good one-on-one [00:06:35] meeting and what are maybe some things to avoid. What’s your experience been with this, Ben? As someone who [00:06:40] really has learned to manage people as a gym owner, what’s your journey been with learning to have [00:06:45] really good one-on-one meetings?

That’s a great question. Gotta think on that for a second. [00:06:50] I have completely 180 my take on [00:06:55] this. Yeah. So coming from, as a trainer, as a craft, who then opened a gym. My [00:07:00] original, someone who attended a lot of mediocre meetings from people truly probably trying their [00:07:05] best, but falling drastically short of expectations.

I’ve been self-employed as a trainer even before I owned my [00:07:10] gym, and I’m like, cool, this is just time that I could have been making money, training somebody where you wanna talk at me for [00:07:15] 45 minutes and you know what’s, I just didn’t see any value. Yeah. And some cases [00:07:20] there just wasn’t any value to see.

Yes. My experience of meetings was that they sucked. [00:07:25] Now that I’m managing people. You know, I have [00:07:30] four. I’m just going through a list of my head. I think I have four, one-on-one meetings every week, and I think [00:07:35] those are some of the most important hours of my week. Yeah, it is. Yes. Meetings can be your most expensive [00:07:40] thing, particularly team meetings provided you pay for them, which I think you probably should, but they’re also like the same [00:07:45] page conversation that everybody needs.

I cannot imagine having a direct report to use corporate [00:07:50] speak here and not having some sort of regular meeting cadence. I just, I genuinely can’t [00:07:55] imagine how that would work. Yeah, I think it would. Yeah, I agree. [00:08:00] I agree. You, you, you can’t build, build a relationship with someone that you’re working with on a regular basis [00:08:05] if you don’t see each other on a regular basis and structure.

Structure your time [00:08:10] together to make sure that you’re focused on the most important things for your work together. I think [00:08:15] it’s, it’s not just about becoming friends. In fact, I don’t even care if you’re friends with the people that you work with, [00:08:20] but like and trusts each other enough to be effective in your work together.

[00:08:25] And that requires some quality time together and consistency of what you spend your time talking about and [00:08:30] working on. So let’s just go through, I think for the purpose of this call, what we decided we would do is maybe [00:08:35] walk through what we. Think a really good one-on-one meeting agenda. Looks like [00:08:40] for those of you who are listening who are in our unicorn society or leadership society groups, you have access to this already.

[00:08:45] We have a whole meeting agenda kind of playbook, a team meetings playbook, which goes through all of our agendas. [00:08:50] But for those of you listening, you might want to grab a pen and paper, ’cause we’re gonna go through what we think is a really [00:08:55] great kind of 30 minute. One-on-one meeting agenda and just give you kinda [00:09:00] the best practices.

This is not the only way to have a one-on-one meeting, but what we hope to check [00:09:05] off for you is a list of things that are really critical components of a great [00:09:10] one-on-one meeting. So, do you wanna kick us off, Ben? Where’s it, where’s the best place to start? A [00:09:15] one-on-one meeting that’s 30 minutes long, starting with a personal check-in.

Yeah. [00:09:20] How’s life outside of work? This could also be viewed as, give me a couple things that have gone [00:09:25] well. Personal professional is what we use at BFU, and you want the goal of this. There’s [00:09:30] obviously a few different ways you could do this. If I’m gonna say one, it’s gonna be a personal check-in, but it’s so that you’re actually getting to [00:09:35] know the person and you’re hearing what their likes and interests are, and you’re getting a pulse check over time on what are the [00:09:40] things they value and care about.

It gives you so much information. If they’re, if they’re as [00:09:45] parent or their spouse is sick and they’ve got this other thing going on, that other thing. Yeah. Like they, it [00:09:50] actually gives you a lot of information that maybe I wanna soften the feedback I was planning on giving them later. Mm-hmm. I shouldn’t ask them for this [00:09:55] other thing.

It’s not just to give you ammunition so that you can do that, but it, by asking good [00:10:00] questions, it helps you be a better manager and leader. ’cause you can manage the human being, not just the [00:10:05] ink and paper role. Yeah. Said, I don’t know if it, I, it feels like it’s spoiler [00:10:10] alerts, but spoiler alert, everyone that you work with has a life outside of work [00:10:15] and how that life outside of work is going impacts their ability to show up and do their job [00:10:20] every day in positive and negative ways.

And so if you are a manager and you completely [00:10:25] ignore what someone’s life is like outside of work, I’m not saying you gotta be nosy. I’m not saying you gotta be [00:10:30] up in their business, but you have to be curious about how’s life? Are your kids were sick? How are they doing [00:10:35] now? I know you’re taking care of your mom.

How are you doing it? Taking care of yourself? I know you, whatever the case is, [00:10:40] you’re moving. That’s really stressful. How are you doing it? Managing your time, right? These are things [00:10:45] that it’s okay to talk about with the people that you work with, and I would say over time it’s [00:10:50] essential that you know those things so you could better build a relationship and help them [00:10:55] navigate their work and life.

Together. Yeah. All right. Cool. Personal check-in. Great place to [00:11:00] start then. Where do you go? What’s one of the things you could do next? There’s a couple different things you could do next. So [00:11:05] the order is up to you, but one of those would be wins and challenges or this could be also [00:11:10] framed for our EOS traction frameworks, unicorns, friends issues and opportunities is how I would think of [00:11:15] this.

Yeah. What are the discussion items for today? Issues or things that are challenges you’re facing? [00:11:20] Opportunities could be like potential wins, but ideally both of you would be contributing [00:11:25] to. I vote for Google Doc ’cause it’s simple a meeting and you’d both be able to pre-populate this before the [00:11:30] meeting.

And you both would’ve reviewed it before the meeting. So none of this is probably like a blindside. [00:11:35] And it would be like I’d put my initials if it was me and Michael and be like, bp, we’ve got this cool [00:11:40] opportunity with X thing. I’m not gonna write a novel. But then I had gave Mic Michael enough information like, Hey, it looks [00:11:45] like we got a cool opportunity.

Tell me more about that. Yep. Um, and I think this serves a lot of [00:11:50] things like one issue. You probably wanna solve issues that your team are having, or at least make them [00:11:55] feel heard. You probably wanna know what opportunities as a business owner, ’cause that’s good business. Mm-hmm. But it also [00:12:00] creates a space to collaborate and see what maybe that person wants to run with.

[00:12:05] Maybe it gives an opportunity if a trainer who wants to do more and you’re seeing if their lead coach material. [00:12:10] You’re also, you’re not evaluating, that’s a strong word. This isn’t a science experiment, but it is giving you a peek [00:12:15] into like how are they thinking about the business? Do they default to almost always client centric [00:12:20] stuff or are they looking at maybe like systems and programming?

Or are they looking at. [00:12:25] We got a coach who’s like really got a green thumb and our plant game at our gym is on fucking point, which blows my mind [00:12:30] because I keep the plant alive to save me. This one behind me is new ’cause it died. But you can start to see how are [00:12:35] they seeing the business and what trajectory could they take If at some point you wanna step away and wanna replace yourself.

[00:12:40] There’s all, that’s one of many benefits that actually going through this together also gives them a peek behind the curtain of, [00:12:45] yeah, what’s going on in the business. ’cause if you’re on the floor 25 hours a week, you don’t necessarily know what’s going on in [00:12:50] sales and marketing line. Yeah, I think all those things are true, so I’ll say yes.

Yes. And I [00:12:55] really like the framing of wins and challenges in part because it forces both of us to sit down and say, [00:13:00] what’s going well in the last week or since we last met? What are some wins we’ve both, we’ve had, [00:13:05] or you’ve had, or the businesses had? Let’s sit down and give. Praise or praise is due. Make [00:13:10] sure we’re talking about the positive things and the lessons we’re learning from our success, not just from our [00:13:15] failures and then also what’s not been going well.

What are things that are issues or opportunities or things we [00:13:20] need to focus on today? And the, I think the, probably the most important part of putting [00:13:25] this as an agenda item in your meeting is that it encourages collaboration. [00:13:30] All too often when people have one-on-one meetings with their managers that are very one-sided and the [00:13:35] manager comes with the agenda and the manager dictates what we’re talking about, and that’s not a way [00:13:40] to manage, no relationship survives that kind of one-sided approach.

And so this is a, [00:13:45] we’re both gonna contribute to the things we’ve seen go well. And we’re both gonna contribute to this list of things we [00:13:50] wanna work on or challenges or issues we need to address. So I love that as an agenda item, whether it’s [00:13:55] next on the list or wherever you put it. It’s important component.

Yeah. I also just, [00:14:00] something I also just thought of is, if you’re like me and you’re not. You haven’t yet developed the skill [00:14:05] of giving the frequency, of giving enough specific positive feedback to people. Yeah, getting [00:14:10] them to share some wins. All you have to do is reflect back and give them praise. [00:14:15] It’s forcing you to do that thing and it’ll, what is it?

Three to one, five to one, seven to one. I’ve heard different [00:14:20] numbers. Yep. More than one to one of positive. Two Critical feedback. This is a great [00:14:25] way to mine for that. And then give it to them. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. ’cause if even if they’re naming [00:14:30] their successes and sharing them with you, you get to reflect them back and celebrate them in that moment.

It still counts. [00:14:35] Still feels good to have your boss recognize and appreciate and praise the great [00:14:40] work that you’ve done, even if you’re the one that has to tell ’em about it. And often you do. They don’t see everything you do, [00:14:45] so having this moment where they get to see what you think is going well is fantastic.[00:14:50]

Maybe I’ll give the next one just to give you a break, but I think another item that goes on the agenda, maybe it’s [00:14:55] third, maybe it’s second. I don’t know. It’s, it depends on you, but there has to be some moment of accountability. [00:15:00] After all, this is a management conversation and one person’s job is to manage the performance of [00:15:05] the other.

So there’s gonna be some moment where if I’m managing Ben, I’ll say, okay, Ben, [00:15:10] next in the meeting, let’s review your top priorities and projects. So this is a moment for us to [00:15:15] one. If we’re not, get clear about what Ben’s top priorities are and what [00:15:20] projects he owns at the moment. Right? And oftentimes that’s a piece that’s just missing in the [00:15:25] relationship entirely, is people are not clear about what is are the priorities on Ben’s list, Ben and I [00:15:30] have a whole list of a million to-do list items, but what’s at the top?

What are the things that are most [00:15:35] important for him to accomplish, and is he focused on that? I would go through that list with [00:15:40] him and say, okay, how’s this going? How’s this going? How’s this going? And that’s Ben’s chance to report into [00:15:45] me how he’s doing on the things that we both agreed are at the top of the list.

In [00:15:50] terms of priorities you wanna add to that? I’m just giggling a little bit because often what I’ve [00:15:55] seen happen is Michael will like, Hey, one way of structuring this is Michael to ask me, I’m his. [00:16:00] I work for him. In this scenario, he’s, what are your top priorities? And I say, A, B, and C. And what [00:16:05] Mike goes through, Michael says, is What the fuck?

So it can be a very good same page [00:16:10] conversation if it like. Yes. And what about d and E? Those are the [00:16:15] things we talked about last time. Yeah, totally. Yeah. It’s very easy for that stuff to get lost in [00:16:20] the shuffle when people have all kinds of things on their plate. It’s important that you’re both on the same page [00:16:25] about what are their most important ones.

Not that there’s a list of things, but a [00:16:30] prioritized list. So very clear that if something’s gotta die or something’s gotta take longer, or something’s gotta [00:16:35] get kicked down the road or deprioritized. We’re on the same page about which ones those are and [00:16:40] which ones those aren’t. And all too often I think that’s where I see a lot of managers get really frustrated [00:16:45] is that their people they manage will prioritize the stuff that is easy.[00:16:50]

They’ll prioritize the stuff they know how to do, and they’ll deprioritize the stuff that’s [00:16:55] hard and that they might need to ask help for help with. Or it might take a long time, or it might be [00:17:00] uncomfortable. And the reality is. Often the most important stuff is the stuff that’s hardest and [00:17:05] most uncomfortable, right?

And so we gotta be really clear headed about that, and in the meetings, [00:17:10] writing it down. So at some point there needs to be some time. I think in a 30 minute meeting, this is [00:17:15] like a five or 10 minute conversation about. Let’s stay accountable to your most important top [00:17:20] priorities. Actually, lemme just talk about timing.

I’ll go back, we haven’t mentioned it yet, but generally speaking, we think in a 30 [00:17:25] minute meeting, the personal check-in is probably like five minutes. The wins and challenges is probably another [00:17:30] five minutes. Accountability probably takes a little longer. That’s probably more like 10 of the 30 minutes, [00:17:35] right?

Yeah. Which, which means we have, you know, about one another. 10, 10 minutes left. So let’s talk [00:17:40] about how we would spend those, Ben. Yeah. First up would be education. Mm-hmm. What knowledge or [00:17:45] skills do you wanna learn that’ll take your work to the next level? Now, I will give the caveat [00:17:50] that this, in my opinion, is biased towards a company that has [00:17:55] growth, or kaizen or some.

Synonym for value as part of their values, which I [00:18:00] imagine will resonate with most of the people listen into this podcast. Sure. But this is something that like, if for some reason [00:18:05] you don’t care about your team getting better, this could arguably be optional, even though I’m having a hard [00:18:10] time wrapping my head around this.

Yeah. But it’s, the nice part about it is it’s self-led. You’ll [00:18:15] notice that it didn’t, the question wasn’t A, B, and C. It’s what do you wanna learn? Again, [00:18:20] it’ll also help you get a feel for the direction that they want to go. I really wanna learn a bit more about programming, or [00:18:25] I wanna learn external versus internal cues, or it’s an admin role and they’re like, you know what?[00:18:30]

It’s clear to me that I’m actually lacking a little bit in my Google Sheet skills. I wanna do a Google Sheets course. Can you [00:18:35] recommend anything? I like it because it’s getting them to do like miniature self-assessment, but it’s also [00:18:40] putting them in the driver’s seat so that you can support them on the things that they want to accomplish.

Yeah. [00:18:45] Said. Yeah. And I think this is, this, again, should reinforce that. Like we said earlier, this is a [00:18:50] collaborate, collaborative conversation, right? You’re co-creating this person’s work [00:18:55] experience. And yes, you wanna ask them, what do you wanna learn about Ben? Where are your [00:19:00] opportunities to grow? What skills and knowledge can you develop to make you even better at your job?

And I [00:19:05] might disagree with Ben’s answer as his manager, right? I might say, okay, those are great too. Can I [00:19:10] offer some suggestions? Let’s also think of consider this and this, right? And together we decide [00:19:15] where Ben spends his time and energy to develop. But whether you’re a company that is experience [00:19:20] of mass experiencing massive growth and scaling, and everyone scaling up.

Or you’re just [00:19:25] a place where you want everyone’s job, everyone to get a little better at their job every day. I’m not, I don’t need, you [00:19:30] don’t have a need to have a huge corporate ladder for people to climb, to have continued education be [00:19:35] important. Just being able to do your regular job more effectively with less stress, [00:19:40] to able to navigate problems that come up more, more nimbly.

Nimbly, is that [00:19:45] a word? No, I’m gonna say it’s nimbly with more [00:19:50] agility. More agility. Thanks. That’s a real word. Those are all opportunities for [00:19:55] learning and growth, right? And so I think having some part of your regular conversation at be about how are you growing, [00:20:00] how are you learning, how are you developing, is really critical.

And then I’ll share the last part. I think the [00:20:05] last part of the meeting I think is really critical is where you flip the script and make sure that [00:20:10] the employee gets a chance to manage up to the question. As a manager, I want [00:20:15] the meeting to end with is, Hey Ben, what can I do to support you better?

Between now and when we [00:20:20] meet next, what can I do as your manager to be a better support system? A better network [00:20:25] for you? And again, these are, this is a quick conversation. We spent maybe five minutes on the education [00:20:30] piece, maybe five minutes on the support piece. And I’ll just share from my own experience.

[00:20:35] At first, employees who haven’t been asked this before might not know what to say, and very often you’ll [00:20:40] get, no, I’m good. I don’t think I need anything from you. There’s, they’re so conditioned to wanna appear. [00:20:45] Self-sufficient. Excuse me. Like they got it all figured out. They don’t need anything. And so you might [00:20:50] need to pro them a little bit, probe a little bit and be like, listen, I know you have this project coming up.

If you want some [00:20:55] feedback on it before it’s due, I’m happy to give you some feedback. Or, I know that you have a vacation day next week, [00:21:00] so if you need anything that to take on for you when you’re gone. Communicate to em in advance. I’m [00:21:05] happy to help ’cause I know you have one last day of work next week. I might need to offer some [00:21:10] suggestions for how I, as their manager can help, because they’re gonna be hesitant to wanna put anything on my plate [00:21:15] or show quote unquote, weakness of needing help.

Right? Which we all know is a myth, but [00:21:20] we’re all conditioned to not wanna ask for help. And so you might need to. Probe and prod a little here, [00:21:25] but it really helps the meeting be, again, collaborative and a two-way [00:21:30] street. I’m gonna give you thoughts and feedback about how your performance is going, and I want the same from you about [00:21:35] how I can shop better as a manager.

Yeah. Anything you would add to that? You said it really well said, [00:21:40] I would just adjust the language you, you might need to probe. I think [00:21:45] 99% of the time you’ll need to probe, particularly with newer people, you’re like, you’re always gonna have to probe. [00:21:50] Yeah, pretty much. If you don’t, I think that would be anomaly.

I was even thinking one of the examples you gave is you got [00:21:55] that presentation. Do you want me to review the thing? Often people don’t know what type of help they need. There’s what [00:22:00] they think is, I just need some time to put my, dig my heels in and do it. Which is often what I think. And using Michael’s specific [00:22:05] example of the presentation, the number of times Michael’s been like, do you need any help with that?

And I’m like, [00:22:10] no. And then he probes and he’s, when you get your next draft, your presentation, then I’d be happy to look it over. I’m go, fuck, that’s [00:22:15] exactly what I needed. I just didn’t know that I needed it. Yeah. So particularly as the manager gets to know the [00:22:20] employee better. You’re not, I wanna be clear.

You’re not assuming incompetence here and [00:22:25] trying to make them feel bad. No. The human and their strengths and limitations ’cause you, it’s the end of the meeting. You just got a [00:22:30] whole bunch of info from them. You can give very pointed suggestions of things that you [00:22:35] genuinely think could be valuable, and no one’s going to be offended that you offered to help them.

Yeah. [00:22:40] Yeah, said, so let me recap. I know we’re at a, at end of our time here, but so we think a regular [00:22:45] one-on-one meeting agenda that happens maybe once a week, once every other week for full-time employees, [00:22:50] maybe, maybe once a month for part-time employees. It looks something like this, about five minutes on a personal [00:22:55] check-in.

How’s life? How are you? Maybe five minutes talking about wins and challenges, things that are [00:23:00] going well, things that are not going well. 10 minutes on accountability. Let’s review your top [00:23:05] priorities, your top projects. Make sure we’re on the same page about how they’re going and what those priorities are.[00:23:10]

Five minutes on education. What are you doing to learn and grow? And maybe five minutes on [00:23:15] support. What can I do as a manager to better support you? And listen, it’s not. It’s not a, it’s not the [00:23:20] only way to have a one-on-one meeting, but I think if you touch base on those things, those five [00:23:25] things in your one-on meeting in any way, in any order, you’re gonna have a good meeting.[00:23:30]

That’s gonna be a good, it’s gonna be a good meeting. Yeah. That’s gonna be collaborative and supportive [00:23:35] and growth oriented, both in the growth mindset and in a growth in terms of development. [00:23:40] It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be an effective meeting and one where I don’t think either person should be bored.[00:23:45]

Right, and you’re not spending any more than five or 10 minutes on each one of those things. It moves [00:23:50] along. You cover a lot of ground in 30 minutes. That’s what I like about this agenda. And I’m biased. I’m [00:23:55] pretty sure I made this one. That’s, I think there’s some things I really like about it, and it comes from a lot of [00:24:00] experience.

Yeah. Final thoughts from you, Ben, on the value or importance of one-on-one meetings here? [00:24:05] Yeah, if you’re, the question I was thinking of is like where do I start? And so let’s say you’ve had a [00:24:10] team. Let’s say you don’t do this, or you’ve tried it and it’s been patchy, but you’re not currently doing it on a consistent basis for one reason [00:24:15] or another.

I’d say the place you start is just let your team know, Hey, I’ve got a structural one-on-one meetings. [00:24:20] I think it’s going to be a really beneficial for both of us. It’s gonna be collaborative, it’s support, it’s gonna improve whatever the [00:24:25] things you think are gonna improve and then start initially can be a little bit patchy.

[00:24:30] Pulling teeth isn’t uncommon for the first couple meetings, particularly if it’s existing [00:24:35] staff now doing a new thing. It might be feel a little bit different. Sure. And if you commit to this for a biweekly [00:24:40] meeting for three months, I would be blown away. If by the end of those three months you don’t see, [00:24:45] uh, like probably measurable and improvement in both your business, but also the depth of relationship you have with [00:24:50] your staff.

Then when things come up, you’ve been adding all these little marbles to the trust [00:24:55] jar, and when things come up, you’ve got a balance established that you can pull from when the time is right. [00:25:00] Yeah. If they don’t get that support and that regular feedback and all the things we just talked about. [00:25:05] It makes it really hard to handle things when shit gets tough.

I’m fortunate [00:25:10] that I like all the people that I work with and I think it’s not, this is like a preparation meets opportunity thing, but if I [00:25:15] didn’t like Michael and didn’t feel like I got a lot of support when I screwed something up and he [00:25:20] came down on me, so to speak, that’s a lot harder to take than if we built building rapport this whole [00:25:25] time and we know there’s a really.

A trust thing. You can just have that deeper level of conversation without [00:25:30] there being defensiveness and challenge. And that’s not the only reason to do this. Your business is also gonna get better. [00:25:35] But yeah, if you’re not doing this like clearly, I’m, I think you should start like. [00:25:40] Literally now. Yeah. Yeah.

Like my friend. I think it’s such an investment. It’s an investment in your [00:25:45] people and you’re investing your time and your energy and your relational effort to spend time with this person [00:25:50] and help them learn and grow and work better together. And you as a manager, if you’re doing it well, you’re [00:25:55] also getting better as a manager over time, which I know for a lot of our listeners, you all are a lot of first time [00:26:00] managers, and so you get a lot to learn about what people need and how to support them, and that should be happening [00:26:05] when you follow an agenda like this.

Yeah. Thanks as always, Ben. What a great conversation. We talked [00:26:10] about both about Broadway and how to have great one-on-one meetings. This is my perfect podcast, [00:26:15] honestly. That’s good. Broadway and leadership and we’re good to go. [00:26:20] Honestly, we should just change the, the whole premise of this podcast to be about those two things and we’re good to go.[00:26:25]

Anyway, thanks for a great conversation. Dear listeners, I hope you got some great notes and great values and I’ll see you all in the [00:26:30] next one. [00:26:35] [00:26:40] [00:26:45] [00:26:50] Bye.