7 Essential Tips for Effective 1 on 1 Meetings with Your Manager

It’s hard to say no to your manager when they come to you asking to cancel your 1 on 1 meeting. They probably came to you with a good reason. And they are your manager, after all. It’s hard to say no to them for anything they ask.

Try saying: “Okay. I understand you have something pressing, and these meetings are important to me. When can we reschedule our 1 on 1 meeting to?”

• Reciprocity: You’re agreeing to what they want, and immediately set them up to then feel obligated to return the favour by rescheduling in exchange for not meeting now.
• And, not but: By framing your response using “and” instead of “but”, you build on the discussion instead of feeling like you’re disagreeing.
• Immediacy: By immediately requesting to schedule a different time you ensure they don’t forget about it.

When a manager or team member says they don’t see the value of effective 1 on 1 meetings, it’s a virtual certainty they spend most of the meeting talking about projects and status updates. That’s a huge waste.

For your manager, it can be so tempting: they finally have a chance in an otherwise hectic week to talk to you about your work. If you’re on a big team, this may be one of the few times they meet with you alone.

Your manager needs a status update, even if you don’t talk about it in your 1 on 1 meeting. The best way to get them out of your 1 on 1 meeting then is to find ways to get them a status update another time. Here are a few techniques:

• Email Update: Simply send them an email at a frequency you agree makes sense with some basic updates from you on your work.
• Stand Up Meeting: Suggest to your manager you and the team start having a standup meeting to provide daily, bite-size updates. 
• Use a Tool to Help: There are quite a few tools out there like IDoneThis and StandupJack.

• It’s not your manager’s fault if you have nothing to talk about in your 1 on 1 meeting.
• In fact, every time you come to your meeting with nothing to discuss, it makes them dread their 1 on 1 meeting with you a little more. It also gives them another reason to want to cancel or fill the time with status updates.
• No one likes pulling teeth, and it can be excruciating to try to draw everything out of you. This is why it’s important for you to think about what you want to talk about.

Your Career/Growth Goals: If you have an aspiration, don’t assume your manager knows it. Bring it up.

Team Improvement: Have ideas to help the team improve, or work better? Effective 1 on 1 meetings are a great time to discuss them and either come up with ways to apply them or understand why you can’t do them.

Self Improvement: Want help, feedback, or coaching on something? Ask!

Personal Topics: Any personal thing like family stress or sickness bothering you? Talk about it. You will gain empathy and get assistance as well.

Career growth and development conversations are an essential part of how to have effective 1 on 1 meetings.

Your manager likely knows about opportunities in the company that you don’t. If you make your career and skills growth part of your 1 on 1 meetings, they’re much more likely to recognize a role you could fit when openings come up.

It also creates an opportunity for you to make regular progress between review cycles. By breaking down challenges into steps you can accomplish between 1 on 1 meetings, you tap into the best way to stay motivated at work, according to Harvard research.

Whether your manager is afraid they’ll interrupt the flow of your meeting, or they just don’t have a habit of doing so, you need to convince them to take notes. Studies show it will have a major impact on their memory and preparation for your future 1 on 1 meetings.

If something is important to you, and you want them to remember it, don’t be afraid to pause and say:

“This is important to me. If you want to take a minute to write this down, we can pause for a moment.”

Without action, there is no progress. Without progress, there’s no change. And if nothing changes, you’re going to get discouraged. You will start to see little point in continuing to talk about issues and ideas important to you.

If you’ve had a good discussion in your 1 on 1 meeting, then the crucial follow-up step is to establish what can be done about it. Ask, “What do you think we can both do for next time based on what we talked about?”

By presenting it as a question, you make your manager feel like part of the solution.

• In the loop: Find out what they feel out of the loop on related to your work. Create a lightweight way to keep them updated.
• Take the lead: If they’re managing many projects at once, offer to take the lead on one part so it’s not on them to lead every meeting, decision, or deliverable. This is also a great way for you to build leadership skills.
• Learn their style: Simply adapting some of your deliverables to fit a style that makes their life easier can be a lifesaver. This could be a summary page, a certain template they prefer, or the timing of when to request feedback.