What is a one on one discussion?
One-on-one is a meeting between a manager and their direct report at a certain predefined frequency. These meetings play a crucial role in setting up a team for success by aligning goals, defining expectations, providing support and helping your team realize their true potential. It can foster open communication, build trust, and strengthen relationships by providing a safe space for sharing feedback and addressing concerns.
Regular check-ins help you stay proactive about issues, reinforces a culture of collaboration and feedback and allows for continuous feedback loops, ensuring that your team is constantly evolving and improving.
How do you prepare for a one-on-one meeting?
To conduct an effective one-on-one meeting:
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Set a clear agenda: Don't own complete agenda yourself. Use inputs from your team members to include things they wish to discuss as well.
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Review previous 1-1 meeting notes: Go over your previous conversations to identify areas of improvement, action items or other topics that require attention.
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Prepare questions: List down all the questions you wish to ask in areas of feedback, growth or other topics.
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Take notes: It's impossible to remember things, especially when you plan to have conversations with your entire team. Taking notes ensures you can refer back to them later and work on listed action items.
This one-on-one meeting product provides template, questions, tracker and a monthly self-reflection exercise for you to have a productive conversation.
How long should 1 on 1 meetings be?
One on one meetings can run from 30-60 minutes depending on frequency, agenda (some topics may need longer to cover) and specific employee needs.
30 mins: Is sufficient when you're meeting your team weekly or bi-weekly and want to address immediate issues, provide regular feedback and address their specific needs.
45 mins: Might be required when you're meeting bi-weekly or monthly and need time to delve into specific projects, challenges, and development areas without feeling rushed.
60 mins: Is appropriate for monthly or quarterly meetings including strategic discussions, career development conversations, or brainstorming. It provides ample time for reflection, feedback, and goal-setting.
What are the benefits of one on one?
One-on-one meetings done well can enable you to:
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Understand individual needs, motivations, and challenges, fostering deeper connections.
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Identify issues early and offer support before problems escalate.
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Increase engagement by showing a commitment to their success and well-being.
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Seek alignment on objectives, priorities, and expectations, making it easier to work toward shared goals.
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Identify and discuss growth opportunities to develop new skills and expand their expertise.
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Foster a culture of continuous feedback, helping them learn, grow, and contribute more effectively to the team.
What is the best format for a 1-on-1 meeting?
A good agenda for a one-on-one meeting includes the following:
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Recap of previous meeting: Discuss key action items and updates from previous 1-1 meeting.
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Growth discussion: Discuss growth opportunities and required support for continuous development.
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Skill development: Encourage skill development and practice for fulfilling their role and responsibilities.
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Your feedback: Share constructive criticism including areas they're doing well and where they need to improve.
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Their feedback: Seek honest feedback to improve as a manager and suggestions for org/leadership changes.
If you are meeting a team member for the first time in a 1-1, don't jump to growth, skills, or other topics without getting to know them first. Ask questions provided with this download (for first one-on-one meeting) to get to know them better. Getting a peek into life without getting too personal can give you just the information needed to communicate effectively and work better together.
Most importantly, don't make your 1-1 meetings about status or task updates. Status updates are important to know how the team is progressing, what challenges they are facing and how they plan to unblock themselves. But there’s a time and place for it. One-on-one meetings are not one of them. One-on-one meetings should be largely focused around understanding your team’s concerns, discussing opportunities, brainstorming solutions and identifying areas of growth.
Template provided with this product includes all these sections for you to have an effective conversation with your direct reports.
How do you start a 1:1 meeting?
If this is your first one-on-one meeting, start by telling a little about yourself and then show genuine curiosity to learn about their hobbies, interests and life outside of work.
In subsequent conversations, you can continue to ask some of these questions to establish a personal connect and then move on to ask questions in areas of growth, skills and feedback. Once you have action items listed out, discuss them at the beginning of your next 1-1 meeting with summary and updates of previous action items.
How to lead a good one on one?
Here are the 5 practices for effective one-on-one meetings:
Be a human, not a robot
Many managers set strict professional boundaries and don’t make an attempt to know their direct reports beyond work. They talk work all the time—requirements, deadlines, expectations. To them nothing else matters. Engaging in small talk or discussing anything that doesn’t involve work seems like a waste of time because they don’t understand the value in building a personal connection and getting a peek into their team’s life outside of work. Your reports are real human-beings with emotions, desires and dreams. They have a life beyond work. Treating them as humans and not resources builds the connection that’s necessary to utilize their full potential. One-on-one meetings can’t be effective if you don’t make an attempt to know the person on the other side. Personal connections are a prerequisite to a healthy professional relationship.
Think growth, not status update
One thing that’s always top of a manager's mind is meeting deadlines and stakeholder expectations. This can lead to a default tendency to ask for project updates whenever they meet their team. Status updates are important to know how the team is progressing, what challenges they are facing and how they plan to unblock themselves. But there’s a time and place for it. One-on-one meetings are not one of them. One-on-one meetings should be largely focused around understanding your team’s concerns, discussing opportunities, brainstorming solutions and identifying areas of growth. Growth oriented discussion will not only keep the conversation productive, it will also be deeply engaging for your team. They will be challenged to think, deal with their problems, work out solutions and draw valuable learning lessons.
Do less talking, more listening
One-on-one meetings may seem like a great opportunity to share everything on your mind—all your concerns, feedback, issues or anything else you find worth sharing. But in trying to complete your agenda, you may speak too much and do very little listening. Speaking makes you feel good—you pat yourself in the back for a job well done. But doing all the talking prevents you from listening to their expectations and concerns. You not only miss understanding how your message is received, but also leave them feeling unheard and misunderstood. For an effective one-on-one meeting, make them feel heard and understood first. They are more likely to listen to you when you listen to them first with the intent to understand and show respect for their views.
Stay present, keep distractions away
Managers are busy creatures with hundreds of things on their mind and multiple things vying for their attention—stakeholders with unrealistic demands, deadlines fast approaching, customer escalations, an overflowing calendar and an inbox full of emails. This makes it hard for them to focus on one thing at a time. Being distracted, multitasking or pretending to listen in a one-on-one meeting is not only disrespectful and rude, it instantly shuts down the conversation. To get your people to open up, you need to build trust—create space where they feel safe to share their ideas and concerns. This isn’t possible when you are present physically but mentally checked out. Before entering a 1-1 conversation, commit to being present—set aside all sources of distraction and pay attention to the person in front of you.
Set a rhythm, don’t meet ad hoc
One-on-one meetings are a great source to bridge the gap between your expectations and your team’s performance. It helps both the parties reach a common ground by aligning on goals, setting direction, clarifying assumptions and providing support necessary. Your team can’t excel without clarity on how they’re doing and what they can do to be better. Continuously striving for improvement is the key to unlock their hidden potential. To enable your team to strive for excellence and not settle for mediocrity, you need to have regular discussions with a pre-defined cadence. Having a schedule to meet not only makes these meetings more likely to happen, it also enables both the manager and the direct report to be better prepared for a constructive discussion.
These practices along with the template and questions provided with this product will enable you to lead one-on-one meetings confidently and effectively.
What should I say in first meeting?
If you are meeting a team member for the first time in a 1-1, don't jump to growth, skills, or other topics without getting to know them first.
Your reports are real human-beings with emotions, desires and dreams. They have a life beyond work. Treating them as humans and not resources builds the connection that’s necessary to utilize their full potential.
One-on-one meetings can’t be effective if you don’t make an attempt to know the person on the other side. Personal connections are a prerequisite to a healthy professional relationship. Asking questions without getting too personal can give you just the information needed to communicate effectively and work better together. Knowing them can enable you to adapt the conversation instead of simply following a script.
Start with talking a little about yourself and then ask some of these questions to get to know them better:
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Tell me a little about yourself, your family and past work experience.
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Where did you grow up? Where did you go to college?
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What kind of work excites you?
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What do you like doing outside of work?
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What is your favorite book, movie, tv show or travel destination?
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What do you value the most?
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What puts you off—something you can’t tolerate?
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What’s your biggest strength?
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What are you most fearful about?
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What is it that you find annoying in others?
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What kind of people do you most enjoy working with?
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Who do you turn to for guidance and advice? Why?
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When was the last time you took a vacation? How did it go?
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What inspired you recently? What was special about it?
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What's your favorite food / cuisine?
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How do you prefer to receive feedback?
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Do you play any sports or engage in other physical activities?
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Are you a morning person or a night owl?
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Where do you stay? How long does it take to commute?
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In what ways do you like to be supported?
What questions should I ask in a one-to-one meeting?
This product provides a list of 60 questions that you can ask in your one-on-one meeting covering questions for first 1-1 meeting, growth areas, skills, and feedback.
For example:
Get to know them
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Tell me a little about yourself, your family and past work experience.
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Where did you grow up? Where did you go to college?
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What kind of work excites you?
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What do you like doing outside of work?
Growth related questions
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Do you have clarity on your goals or what you need to do to achieve success as a team?
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Have you struggled with any projects or tasks recently? What caused it?
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Do you understand the company's strategy and vision and how it aligns with your day-to-day work?
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What's the biggest challenge you faced recently that impacted your productivity and performance? How did you overcome it?
Skills related questions
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What new skills are you developing? How would they help you?
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What challenges did you face while building these skills?
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What's been the toughest skill for you to learn? What made it so?
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Which skills are crucial to succeed in your role? How are you practicing them?
Their feedback
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Which aspects of our team culture do you wish you could change?
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What's the biggest bottleneck that prevents you from doing your job well?
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What’s the best and worst thing about working with team?
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Which team member do you enjoy working with the most? Why?
What do you write in a 1:1 meeting invite?
When writing a 1:1 meeting invite, aim to use a clear, welcoming tone that prepares your direct report for the meeting's purpose without overwhelming them. Here’s a basic structure and examples of what to include:
1. Clear subject line
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Example: 1:1 meeting [Your Name]/[Recipient’s Name]
2. Brief purpose of the meeting
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Outline why you’re meeting.
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Example: Looking forward to our 1:1. This will be a great time for us to touch base on your career development, review any challenges, and discuss your ongoing goals.
3. Suggested agenda
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If you have specific topics to cover, mention them briefly. Also invite them to add items if they have any.
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Example:
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Agenda:
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Discuss any blockers or support you may need
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Career goals and development opportunities
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Please add topics or questions you’d like to discuss. This is your time, so let’s make the most of it!
5. Other details
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Include the date, time, location, or virtual meeting link. Mention how long the meeting is expected to last.
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Example: Date: [Date] | Time: [Time] | Duration: 30 minutes | Location: [Meeting Room/Zoom Link]
Sample 1:1 Meeting Invite
Subject: 1:1 weekly meeting with [Your Name]/[Recipient’s Name]
Body:
Hi [Recipient’s Name],
I’m looking forward to our weekly 1:1. This is a dedicated time for us to touch base on your career development, review any challenges, discuss your ongoing goals and any other topics on your mind. Here’s a rough agenda for us to follow:
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Discussion on any blockers or resources needed
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Career goals and development
Feel free to add anything else you’d like to cover—this is your time, so let’s make it as productive as possible!
Meeting Details:Date: [Date]Time: [Time]Duration: [30 minutes]Location: [Room/Zoom Link]
Regards,
[Your Name]
This format keeps it simple, clear, and leaves room for flexibility, making the recipient feel valued and prepared for the conversation.
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