Unlock the secrets to becoming an exceptional leader with our latest episode of the Things Leaders Do podcast. This week, we're diving into the transformative power of one-on-one meetings and how they can revolutionize your leadership approach. Learn from industry giants like Eric Schmidt of Google and Arvind Krishna of IBM about how a simple yet consistent one-on-one can dramatically boost employee engagement and team success. We share actionable insights on the ideal frequency of these meetings, depending on your team size and tenure, and highlight the importance of supporting your team and removing any obstacles they face.
Additionally, we introduce the Rounding Program—a structured framework for fostering trust through consistent communication. Discover how adhering to a regular schedule of weekly, biweekly, and monthly rounding forms can prevent employee disengagement and make everyone feel valued. We also highlight a unique method for gauging employee well-being through the "battery level" question, helping leaders address burnout promptly. As we wrap up, we emphasize the continuous journey of staying connected with your team and improving your leadership skills. Tune in for these invaluable tips and remember to keep doing the things that leaders do!
Unlock the secrets to becoming an exceptional leader with our latest episode of the Things Leaders Do podcast. This week, we're diving into the transformative power of one-on-one meetings and how they can revolutionize your leadership approach. Learn from industry giants like Eric Schmidt of Google and Arvind Krishna of IBM about how a simple yet consistent one-on-one can dramatically boost employee engagement and team success. We share actionable insights on the ideal frequency of these meetings, depending on your team size and tenure, and highlight the importance of supporting your team and removing any obstacles they face.
Additionally, we introduce the Rounding Program—a structured framework for fostering trust through consistent communication. Discover how adhering to a regular schedule of weekly, biweekly, and monthly rounding forms can prevent employee disengagement and make everyone feel valued. We also highlight a unique method for gauging employee well-being through the "battery level" question, helping leaders address burnout promptly. As we wrap up, we emphasize the continuous journey of staying connected with your team and improving your leadership skills. Tune in for these invaluable tips and remember to keep doing the things that leaders do!
Welcome to Things Leaders Do, the podcast that uncovers the secrets of becoming an extraordinary leader. If you're a leader who's constantly seeking growth, inspiration and tangible ways to level up your leadership, then you've come to the right place. Remember, the world needs exceptional leaders, and that leader is you. Now here's your host, colby Morris.
Speaker 2:
Hey leaders, welcome back to the TOD podcast. This is your host, Colby Morris, and gotta say I appreciate you joining us. This podcast is really starting to gain some steam. We are getting some great connections on LinkedIn Instagram page, getting some great questions and it's it's been really nice and I just want you to understand I appreciate all the value that you're adding, because you feel like I'm adding value and that's amazing. That's the way the world should work, right? Well, I appreciate you joining us today.
Speaker 2:
If you're new here, the Things Leaders Do podcast is designed to help leaders get better faster, and I do that by trying to give you actionable advice. I know a lot of leadership podcasts and books and all that kind of stuff is out there, but they're mostly theoretical and what I want to do is really give you some tools to try to make you better faster. And today, the tool I want to focus on is what I think is pretty stinking important, and that is the one-on-one meeting. Now, make no mistake about this. Okay, the one-on-one meeting in my head, in my mind, in my experience, is the single greatest leadership tool that there is. I know that sounds crazy, but it is true. It has proven to be true over and over and over. It has proven to be true over and over and over. Did you know that 70% of employee disengagement is caused by managers 70%? Another statistic says that 70% of the employee experience while they're working there is based off the relationship they have with their manager. Isn't that crazy? I mean, 70%, that's dadgum, near everybody in your organization. So who believes this? Well, there's a couple of people that believe it Eric Schmidt, ceo of Google. He has a quote out there about how it's the. I'll butcher it, but it's. The leader's most important job is having one-on-one meetings. Let's see Arvind Krishna. He's the CEO of IBM. He said that's. You know, the one-on-one is basically the ultimate driver of success. Basically the ultimate driver of success. I mean, it is not the greatest secret, but it's one of the things that I think a lot of leaders don't put enough emphasis behind.
Speaker 2:
Okay, now, what I don't want this to be is just another talk about the one-on-one. Okay, I want you to really start thinking in terms of how to run this as a program within your own organization, within your company. And a great one-on-one is going to cover a couple of different things. Okay, one, it needs to really speak to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and that's, you know, around employee engagement. There's five levels of that disengaged, not engaged, almost engaged, engaged and then highly engaged, and there's all kinds of predictors and indicators of where an employee is on that spectrum. But obviously you're wanting highly engaged employees, you want people who are highly motivated and want to be a part, and they're going to get there in part by the one-on-ones they have with their manager, the one-on-ones they have with their manager.
Speaker 2:
Before we get into how, I want to talk about how often. How often are you supposed to meet with your team? Well, it depends on a couple of things. One, it's going to depend on the size of your team, and I'm going to kind of qualify that in a little bit. It depends on how many issues are going on. If you have a lot of issues happening, then you need to meet a little more regularly. And it also depends on the newness of the team or the newness of the manager.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so Harvard Business Review said that the best practice is to meet with each person at least once a week. Once a week. So there are some qualifiers and quantifiers there. And that's if you have 10 or fewer direct reports. So, fewer than 10 direct reports, you should meet weekly with them. Okay, if you have more than 10 direct reports, then you need to be looking at something more. But those weekly meetings, those weekly meetings are about 30 minutes long. Okay, you're not covering as much because you're meeting more frequently. Okay, if you have more than 10 direct reports, you're going to meet biweekly and those meetings are a little bit longer. Okay, they're going to be like 45 to 60 minutes long. Okay, and because you're not meeting as often, you've got a little bit more to cover every other week.
Speaker 2:
If you have a new manager or a new team member, you should meet weekly, and part of that is because you don't know that person. Okay, you are responsible for getting to know them, for building that relationship with them, and the only way you do that is to meet consistently and frequently. Okay, so if you're the new manager and you've got a new team member, you're going to meet with them every week and you really find out who they are, connect with them, make sure they understand what their job is. I'm not just going to throw them out there and wish them good luck. Okay, but you should meet with them every week.
Speaker 2:
So what in the world do we talk about in these meetings? Well, there's a few things you definitely want to cover. Okay, one you need to connect. You need to work with that person to connect with them and figure out who they are. Okay, not just what they do, but who they are as a person. Okay, the basis of the relationship. You need to support them, give them the support they need. You need to, as a leader, remove obstacles from their path that's keeping them from developing, to keep them from succeeding. Whatever it is that's keeping them from being successful. Your job as a leader is to find out what that is and remove it. You also need to recognize wins. What are some wins they've had lately? Make sure you recognize that. You need to assess their progress and make sure you're developing them.
Speaker 2:
Part of this will be employee development, performance management, okay, okay, so let's talk about how it works. The very first thing is that you want to meet, and I'm going to put this as if you're meeting weekly. Okay, you're going to set a standard meeting time. So if I tell Bob, bob, our our standing meeting time, our standing one-on-one is every Thursday at one o'clock is every Thursday at one o'clock, I'm going to send him an invite that repeats every Thursday at one o'clock, and that's that's when I really start honing in and and developing the relationship, because I know I'm going to meet with him weekly, okay, and then I'm going to have some what's called rounding forms. These are questions that you ask that cover kind of the whole gamut of the issues at hand. So part of it will be your Maslow's sorry, I drew a blank there your Maslow's hierarchy, part of it will be employee development, part of it performance management and then some standard rounding questions.
Speaker 2:
Okay, now for the program that I've designed. You're going to use three different weekly forms, but on the fourth week you're going to use a monthly rounding form. That monthly form is much more involved. You're going to cover more information. Okay, we're going to cover more information. Okay, now, if you're meeting biweekly, okay, then again, you're going to set your standard meeting time. Hey, bob, we're going to meet every other Thursday at three o'clock and I send him that invite. Okay, now there's only one biweekly rounding form, because the next time I meet it'll be the monthly rounding form. You see, kind of the pattern weekly there's three, and then the fourth week you have your um, your monthly. If you're bi-weekly, you have one bi-weekly and the next time you meet is the rounding, the monthly rounding, rounding.
Speaker 2:
Now, all that to say this you, as a leader, need to make every effort you can not to cancel or reschedule. And why is that? Because the more you do it, the more you cancel. The more you reschedule, the more you're sending the message to that employee that they're not very important. Message to that employee that they're not very important. They're going to feel disengaged, they're not going to feel like they are important in this organization, they're going to feel they're not important to their boss, to their manager, their leader, and they're going to become disengaged.
Speaker 2:
Okay, now, I understand, there are things that are emergencies that come up and you will have to cancel. I'm not ignorant of that fact. I've been leading for a long time. But let me tell you if you have to cancel, you reschedule for the soonest opening that you can possibly find. So if you were supposed to meet Thursday at 3, you're looking Friday, eight o'clock, nine o'clock. You want to make sure it happens as soon as possible because you want to send the message that this meeting was important, this person is important.
Speaker 2:
Okay, now, if you don't, what's the other method, right? Well, if you're meeting weekly and you cancel. Now you're hoping you meet the next week. If something comes up, you probably meet the next week. Now you've gone probably two or three weeks without meeting with that person. Okay, but let's say it's biweekly. You're meeting with this employee biweekly. Something comes up, you cancel. Now you only have the monthly meeting. But if something comes up again you cancel. You've gone a whole month without meeting with that person. You want to tell them they're not important without telling them they're not important. Do that because you're going to send that message.
Speaker 2:
Okay, now how does the program work? The program works as a trickle-down effect, meaning, if you can picture a standard org chart in your head, okay, from the very top person, that person is going to have one-on-ones or roundings, with all their direct reports underneath them. So picture an arrow going down to those direct reports. Those direct reports will round on their direct report. So picture another arrow going down a level and that keeps going until we reach the frontline staff. Okay, that is the idea of rounding, that we are going from the top all the way to the front line.
Speaker 2:
And why is that? Well, for the most part it shortens the communication distance between the executive and the frontline staff. If you want consistent communication, you need to shorten that distance. You need to have more concise, shorter distances so you can indicate effectively. You want to make sure that it creates a consistent feedback loop? Okay, you make sure that you're addressing all the needs of the employees on a consistent basis. Okay, and then the most important is that it strengthens the relationship between the leader and the employee. This is it. This is the main reason, because leadership, as John Maxwell told us, is influence, and you don't get to influence me until we have a relationship, and we're not going to have a relationship until I have trust, okay. So the basis of this rounding is we're creating trust all the way through the organization, but mostly it starts between you and that employee. Okay.
Speaker 2:
Now the very first part, the very first question you ask usually is a connection question with them. Okay, and it it'll sound. Most people say something like so, how are things, how was your week? How are you doing? You do not get honest feedback this way. So we actually ask a different question and uh, borrowed this from my friend, dan. Uh, if you want some information on him, I'll be happy to pass that along. Dan is with Healthcare Solutions and I want you to think of, like your cell phone battery, okay, and when you have that initial meeting, I'm going to ask that person, hey, how's your battery? Where are you at today? And I'm going to ask them to give me an honest feedback. If they're at 80%, cool, but they come back with something lower than, say, 70%. And I do that because in my head, old school, anything lower than 70 is failing, right.
Speaker 2:
If they say I'm at like 50%, then as a leader, all the other questions go out the window, because you need to address this employee and where they are right now. If they're at 50%, you're talking either burnout or something worse, okay. And so here's where you become an empathetic leader. You have to ask that leader what it is that's happening that's got them at this low of a level. Okay, nothing else matters you. You're, you're not worried about the next questions. The only thing you're worried about is connecting with that person in that moment and find out what is happening. Now they can answer in one of two ways, right. One you know what? I'm just burned out. I don't know if I want to do this anymore. I don't know if I want to work here anymore. Too much going on and you need to step in.
Speaker 2:
Ok, you need to be an empathetic leader, find out how you can help in this situation, okay, or maybe it's something simple. Maybe like wait, what are you talking about, mary? You're at 50, what happened? And they give you something like I had coffee at eight o'clock last night. It was really stupid, so I didn't sleep and I'm just like halfway charged today. Okay, that's completely different. Okay, we can address that. We can laugh a little bit and move on with the rounding, all right. So I have forums and if you would like to get these forums, reach out to me on LinkedIn or on Instagram and I will be happy to send these forums to you. There are weekly rounding forums, there are biweekly rounding forums, there's a monthly rounding forum and then there's a rounding log which basically holds your team accountable for when they are rounding. Okay, it is that simple.
Speaker 2:
We're going to make sure that we are rounding consistently, that we are talking to people, that we're connecting and remember the spirit of this is the main part, Okay, and the first one connect with those people. Okay, connect, build those relationships to. You want to make sure you're developing them. Okay, that they're growing in three that you are really really focusing in on employee development, performance management. Let's look at your goals. Let's talk about your, your development plan and where you are. What is it that they need to develop on, and do they have the relationship with me and trust me to be able to do that? Okay, so that's kind of the overall and, again, I love the questions that we've we've built around this, so I'd love to get them to you if you'd like to connect, but you need to connect and that's the. That's the main part. I prefer LinkedIn. If you want to go to the, the shows Instagram page, both links are in the show notes and you can just click on that and go straight to it.
Speaker 2:
Connect. Say hey, colby, I'd love to have the rounding forms and I will shoot those over to you. Okay, it'll. I'd love for you to be able to use this because I want you to get better faster. Remember, leadership skills only improve when you actively practice what you've learned. It doesn't matter what books you've read, what podcasts you've listened to, what conferences you've attended, until you actually start practicing the things you learned, you are no better than when you were before it. Okay, you only get better when you practice. Hey, if I'm bringing you value, would you mind giving the show a follow? Maybe share what you're listening to, send this to another leader who is really struggling to develop relationships, or with their team. I would appreciate it. I appreciate all the people that are that are connecting, listening, rating, reviewing the show and just want to keep going forward from here. So thank you everyone. I will connect with you next week. Until then, make sure you're rounding, doing your one-on-ones, and you know why? Because those are the things that leaders do.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do. If you're looking for more tips on how to be a better leader, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and listen to next week's episode. Until next time, keep working on being a better leader by doing the things that leaders do
