One on Ones - Work or Personal?

Welcome to Mander Tools. Today's topic, one-on-ones, worker personal. Here we go. I think you agree that one of our regrets, and sometimes it's a deeper regret, was the emphasis that we made during our initial shows on one-on-ones about getting to know your directs personally. To the extent of overemphasizing it, and I don't know if we've probably done many managers at the service based upon kind of where we were at the time and how we described that. Don't you think so? Yeah, I think the whole point of this cast, right, is just to tighten our guidance about the balance between work and personal and how to make it work during one-on-ones. When we started doing the cast in 2005, you know, we were at that time in the process consulting some pretty technical organizations. And the managers at several of those clients knew literally nothing about their directs, and then in addition really professed no interest in caring about that. So at the time, we were pretty insistent with many of them that they had to get to know their folks in order to get the best from them. In fact, that was when I coined one of our cheats, which is, you know, do you know the first names of all the kids of all of your directs? And they all failed. And so basically that led to our verbalization of our guidance being skewed based on the client we were working with at the time. We really didn't even realize how far in one direction we'd gone until we started hearing stories of managers who insisted that their direct share really, really personal stuff, even if the direct didn't want to. Or the manager feeling that they completely failed when their direct did not share the real personal stuff, right? They're waiting for that story, that heart wrenching story, something very deeply personal, and they never got it. So they thought they were failing and we go talk to their directs and they're doing just fine. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So this guidance that we're going to share today is going to help clear up how to best conduct your one on ones around the whole work family balance. And we've got six recommendations. First of all, one on ones are business meetings about professional relationships. That's the way to think of them. They're business meetings about professional relationships. Number two, every relationship you have is different. And so that's true with one on ones as well since they're built around professional relationships. Number three, don't hijack the meeting and make it about personal if in fact that's not what your direct wants. Number four, be patient. Sometimes it takes time for directs to open up a little bit. It's not bad if initially they're hesitant. In fact, the majority, the vast majority of directs are going to be hesitant. And that's okay. And number five, some directs want to talk about work and only work and that's fine. And that's good even because that's them. And lastly, some directs will immediately be personal. And that's neither good nor bad compared to people who want to talk about work. But it is good if that's what they want to talk about. Good. Now, I know that we've recorded cast. I can't recall whether we've released it at this point at the point we're recording this cast. But I know we've recorded one on the fact that one on ones are business meetings right and folks sometimes miss that. And their business meetings about professional relationships. Yeah, you know, the whole point of one on one is to develop a better relationship with the two directs. The reason we want better relationships is that we know that better relationships lead to better results and better retention. The two keys to being an effective manager. Okay. So we want a better relationship with each of our directs. And by the way, sometimes we get into discussion at conferences about the whole idea of I have a great relationship with my team and I need somebody. And I say, well, you really can't have a relationship with your team. Tell me about your relationship with each member of your team. Right. We don't want to oversimplify and talk about the entire team together because you can't have a relationship with the whole team. You can certainly average your relationships across everyone and that can be the team's relationship. But by definition, it's it's not accurate. Right. You can't have a you can't have your best friend working for you and have a great relationship relationship with him or her and then have crappy relationships with everybody else and average it out to good. Right. To say good point. Yeah, exactly. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. Right. We know that the way to get good relationships is by communicating. It's not really hard. In fact, when we walk through this whole concept, the conference people just, oh, that's easy. So you got to communicate and for almost every manager we know in the world, making sure we communicate enough with our directs to maintain a solid relationship requires us to schedule time to do so. We all get too busy. We all tend to manage up too much. We all tend to worry about our stuff too much and we end up not spending time with our directs and it hurts the relationship and that hurts the outcome. Right. And we're so busy. The only way to make that happen is to schedule it. Yeah. That's the weekly one on one. Exactly. And for those of you still claim to the idea that quote, I talked to my people all the time, unquote, and that gets you the relationship you need. We're going to tell you again for probably the 50th time. It's just not true. Your directs have told us a thousand times when she comes up and ask how my family is for five seconds and then ask me to do something. It's clear to me she's just asking me about my family in order to make me think she cares when she clearly doesn't. And worse, she's willing to ask as if she does in order to get what she wants. Not cool. So the point there is a lot of people tell us that and the fact is they tell us that because they're always chatting for five seconds before they get to work. Get into into a work discussion when they're talking to direct. That's not knowing your folks. And again, that's another reason why we believe one of our cheats, which is name the first name of all the kids of all your directs is an effective one. So look, again, one on ones are a way of professionally addressing our desire to have a solid professional relationships relationship with each of our directs. There's some natural tension between relationships and meeting scheduling that makes one of ones a little bit awkward. There's some tension between getting work done and talking about family. That's okay. Tension is inevitable. Part of the tension is at least in part because we're all human and we expect relationships not to require scheduling, but it worked because we're the boss and their subordinates. It does require scheduling. So we say all of this to make clear you're not trying to be friends with your directs. They don't have to share personal information that they would only share with their spouse or with their best friend with you in order for you to have a successful one on one. One on ones are about professional relationships. By definition, not just to be clear, we consider a professional relationship with the director to include things like family in most of the cases unless they don't want to because it's inevitable that family is going to bump up against work. But that doesn't mean it's all about family and it's certainly not all private slash personal stuff alone. And it can differ widely amongst your directs. I think managers sometimes get wrapped around the axle around this. They think, well, with Joe, we have a quote unquote great relationship because he's talking to me about his family, about his wife, about his kids, etc. But Mary, not so much. She just wants to talk about work. And so somehow that relationship is terrible. And that's not necessarily true. We have different relationships with each of the individuals on our team. And if the relationship is different, then it's not unexpected that the one on one would be different. Exactly. Yeah. If the relationship is different, you're talking about different things. And so the one on one is going to feel different. Yeah. Look, think of it this way. Some of your close friends are easy going and you don't mind that they're late to things, even if you're somebody who's always on time. One can help if they're your friend that you don't mind. Some of your friends are meticulous and you expect them to be so. You know, you forgive them if they take more time ordering dinner to restaurant. You know, they want to pound them in you. They want to ask some questions. They want to find out if it's gluten free or what have you totally fine. Other people or the same thing every time in no time at all others take two seconds to decide without seeming to care. But they're all your friends, right? And it all works. And it's the same at work. Some of your peers or directs are quick with work others take longer. Hopefully you don't try to make everyone just like you, which by the way is a classic mistake of junior managers or you don't rule out getting good results or expecting good support from someone who's different from you. It's not important that everybody be just like you. I know some of you have probably said life would be so much easier for everyone who are just like you. And that's normal, by the way, if you think that it's impossible, but it's normal. Not like you like me. Yeah, exactly. I saw sorry. I'm sorry. Just like Mike. I think it was an advertising campaign. In fact, built entirely around you, Mike. There was. There was. Yeah, I think this a lot of shoes. So why then do so many of us as managers tend to relate to our direct? as directs rather than as individuals. Probably because it's easier. It's just like speaking to a big audience rather than trying to reach all of them, why not think of them as one big group as the audience? Yeah, that would make it easy. Rather than thinking of the unique characteristics of all ten of our directs, we can simply say, "Hey, there's one common factor. They're all directs. I can keep my distance. I can get my work done. And I can write to them pretty much as interchangeable parts as directs, as opposed to thinking about each one of them, and getting the most out of each one of them." A lot of managers say, "You know, I can justify this," by saying, "That they're responsible for their motivation, not me, and they ought to be giving me their best, regardless of whether I know them well or not. They ought not to need me to give me good work." And to a degree, "Look, you'd be right. Your directs, each of them ought to, in theory and principle, give you and the company their best, regardless. But look, they're human beings. And what we know is they don't do that. And a big reason why they won't do that is their reasonable fear of your power as a manager and their lack of a relationship with you to mitigate that real power. You know, we can ignore that and treat everybody the same. That's one of the reasons why some of you have heard me over the years talk about fairness as a false goal. Let's treat everybody the same. That's fair. Actually, it's not. It's inherently unfair. Or, as opposed to treating everybody the same, we can engage in behaviors that help us develop relationship with each our directs individually. If you're going to treat every direct individually, then you've got to have some sort of system, forgetting to know them. And what's funny about this is people say, "Yeah, I guess, Mark." You know, but really it's kind of easier to think of them all the same. I said, "Well, that's okay." Because your boss was saying the same thing to me recently. He says, "You know, I just treat all my directs exactly the same, but it's fine." Now, there's nothing wrong with sameness when it comes to kindness and professionalism and accuracy and details and completeness and evaluations being conducted against a standard. That's all good fairness. But that's not what gets the best out of each individual. What gets the best out of each individual is knowing the way each individual likes to be communicated to. Why they want to get promoted if they do it all and so on. Look, some of us as managers have roles. Don't worry about people yet. Some of us as managers have roles that are different reporting to us. Maybe we have two analysts, the researcher, and liaison, a chemist. Other managers have a bunch of similar roles reporting to them. Maybe it's five salespeople, or it's eight production techs, or three plumbers, or five metallurgical engineers. Doesn't matter. Which is easier to manage? From a metrics standpoint, we'd argue the different roles is probably harder. But from a personnel management perspective looking at the roles, the similar roles manager has it much harder. She has to differentiate a group all of whom looked the same to the organization. The organization doesn't expect them to be different, but they are their individuals. At least with the analyst and the chemist, we expect differences because the role is different. And so, particularly if we're managing someone who is in a different role than we were in at that level, we have to think a little bit, "Oh, how do I want to manage her or him?" Because I don't know that role. If we're managing nothing but plumbers, we can say, "Well, they're all plumbers." But again, how would you feel if your boss said, "Oh, you're a plumber." "Oh, you're in the chemist role and chemist are like this," whatever that is. So you should therefore be like this and therefore all manage you like this. Look, if there are two people in a relationship and there always are, the fact that one of them stays the same and that person is you, and it's easier for you to do the same things doesn't mean that it's effective. Just because your boss can yell at his low performing high D and get the results he wants doesn't mean he can do that with you if you're not a high D. And once we start thinking about each, having a relationship with each of our team members, rather than the whole team, we start needing to spend time with each of them, as we said. And when we do, those times we spend are going to be different. Otherwise, the meeting is driving the relationship to all be similar, when in fact the people are all different. Look, some of your directs are going to want their handheld more. Others will bristle at even a suggestion. Of having their handheld or a suggestion of some way to do something more effectively. Some are going to want to chit chat, some are going to cross their arms for a couple of months. If they're surly in meetings with other people, they're likely to be surly in their one-on-one with you, initially anyway. If they're friendly, they'll love the time to talk to you. If they gossip with the team, they'll probably gossip with you. Some are going to talk numbers. You know, we talked about having dinner with friends earlier. You can do the same thing with your O3s. They're going to be different. That's not wrong. It's normal. So don't assume that when your chatty friendly directs are chatty and friendly, and your reserved directs are reserved, don't assume you're doing something wrong with that reserved direct. It's frustrating, right? It can't be normal. Terribly frustrating. If your direct isn't one to share a lot of personal information about themselves, they're hobbies, they're personal life, they're family, it's okay. Completely okay. It's not required that they share anything at all. They're not doing something wrong if they don't want to talk about their families. One-on-ones, don't hijack them. One-on-ones don't have to be personal. Exactly. Yeah. Look, in some guidance previously, we recommended all managers always start one-on-ones with the same first question. We didn't say what the first question should be, although we made some suggestions. Other than it should be open-ended and send a clear message that the agenda at that moment was the directs. Since your direct sets the agenda during the first part of the one-on-one, if they don't want to talk about themselves or their family, they don't have to. That's not wrong. They're not failing you in the one-on-one. What that means is if we as managers then proceed to ask a bunch of personal questions, we're subverting the process of one-on-one, right? The purpose of the one-on-ones to develop relationship with an individual. Therefore, they get to define those first few minutes. One-on-ones aren't designed for us to get what information we want. They're designed to foster that relationship. Your directs aren't obligated to share what we want because we want it. That's not a professional relationship. That's a questionnaire. So, if one or more of your team members choose to talk only about work, they're not doing anything wrong. How do we reduce the chances that we're going to have this misunderstanding during one-on-ones? Yeah, okay. To your part and their part, right? That's what we're trying to get clear on here. Look, make sure you follow our guidance about rolling out the Trinity. We recommend you tell your team in advance all about one-on-ones, what they are, why you're doing them, how you learned about them, everything, logistics to scheduling, why they're weekly, why they're scheduled, everything. Use our slides. We've recommended previously sending out the email we have on our website. It's folks that's already written for you. And then spend 30 minutes in a staff meeting, walking everyone through the rationale and logistics. And tell them, and we actually tell them, this is an individual meeting with you. Each one of them is going to be different. Look, if it were me, I'd point to, and heaven forbid, both Maggie and you work for me, Mike. I'd point at Maggie. I said, "Maggie, I look forward to hearing about your boys." I expect to have great time, and I might look at you and say, "Mike, I totally know I'm going to hear about your family." And I also know it's going to be a big, fat project update, and that's great. I love those. So do I. It's going to be different. Yeah, it's exactly why you said it. Yeah. Yeah. So directs aren't really doing anything wrong at all by not sharing personal stuff in the beginning. I mean, I guess on the face of it, they couldn't, right? Because we've said the one-on-one is about them. And we told them specifically at the beginning of the '03, that is their agenda. So if they don't want to talk about personal stuff, then there can't be anything wrong, right? So you have to be just a little bit patient. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time for directs to open up. Yeah, it's their agenda, right? That really means their agenda not ours. So don't worry if your directs don't share. Don't probe, folks. Don't probe in an effort to have a great one-on-one because that's what great one-on-ones are, lots of personal stuff. Be patient. If they don't open up for one or two or three or even four months, it's fine. That's normal for them. Okay? And then the question becomes, okay, Mark, how patient do we need to be? And the answer is totally patient. Okay, that helps. Yeah, exactly. That's my definition. That's my standard totally patient, right? So patient, that if your directs never want to share personal stuff, you don't push them to do so. That is total patience. If they don't want to open up, if they don't want to share about their kids' names, that's fine. They don't ever have to. And you can still have a solid, or let's put it this way, a much better relationship with them after having one-on-ones. Then if you didn't have one-on-ones, and this is why some managers actually say, "Well, I've got three or four people who are not sharing anything, so I'm going to get rid of one-on-ones because the definition of a great relationship includes them sharing all kinds of stuff about their kids." No, it really doesn't. I suspect they have friends. They don't share information about their kids with. They go to soccer games with their kids, and don't talk to anybody else there. You may think that's anti-social. We could argue about that if you wanted. What's important is that's where they are in their life, and that's where you've got to meet them. And look, there's something more. There's a concept here, it's really important. If we're not patient, we actually reduce the chances we're going to learn more. If our directs over whom we have power, feel that we're using one-on-ones to get what we want, that there's a quiet agenda behind the scenes of us learning what we want to learn without actually saying it out loud. They're going to be guarded. It's going to become just another meeting about work with their boss, not a meeting about a professional relationship that leads to better results. Think for a minute, if your boss said, "You have one-on-one meeting about acts," and three months later, you discovered it actually was really about something different, and he was just using that because he wanted to approach the subject of why with you. You hate it, right? Yeah, I feel misled. There is a chance that someone is never going to share, and that's okay. It's more effective to not make an issue out of the fact that they're not sharing with you. That's the definition of total patience, right? The willing is to accept the fact that they may never talk about their personal life. Yep. Okay. Now, there are a couple of situations here, though, that do bear mentioning, that do bear discussing a little bit. First, there's nothing wrong with wanting to know more about a direct family or personal situation, if they request some kind of dispensation due to family or personal reason. Okay. If your direct comes to you and says, "Hey, I need some time for my family," and they haven't shared anything about their family, if they choose not to share, that's fine. Okay. And managers, when they ask for time off for family, it's okay to ask for some details. Do not believe, folks in HR, do not believe, columnists, don't believe, people who are not in your organization, that you are prying. That's not an invasion of privacy, if someone asks for time off for family, and you say, "Well, can you give me a little bit more information?" Now, the reason why people say you're prying is because prying is inherently wrong. And they want to attack your motives. Okay. Now, part of that is because they believe managers are inherently not good and that power is not good, and everybody ought to be equal, which is, say, the world ought to be fair, which is wrong and false in every way. But it's really irrelevant. It's also, I think, underhand in the attack your motives. They believe that people in power want to find out things that they shouldn't find out. Look, as a manager, you have an obligation to understand the character of requests that are being made on you relative to their impact on your responsibilities. There's a difference between going to a football match and needing time to travel to a sea a medical specialist. Okay. Different companies have different rules about this, of course. But as a general rule, it's reasonable to understand what the request for time off or different schedules or other exemption is for. It's not necessarily required that they give it to us. We can still ask and respect their privacy if they choose not to share, but it's not outside of reasonableness for us to ask. Somebody can accuse us of prying and we could say, "I wasn't prying. I was just concerned." I thought it would be appropriate for someone who might know and sit by five days a week for the last three years. But there's a problem if I could help. And frankly, there's a case to be made that it's unreasonable not to ask if one of your directs came to you or if you went to your boss and said, "Look, I need some personal time. I've got an issue with the family." He said, "Sure fine. No problem." And he didn't ask while at the same time, he didn't ask, "Is everything okay or can I help?" While at the same time still being willing to honor your privacy, I would argue to say, "Wow, he's a pretty cold cookie." Right? Yeah. Now look, we're going to have more guidance on this at some point in the future, but too many managers have been led to believe, "Oh, you can't ask that. That's private." Well, those are two different statements. It is private and if a direct says, "I don't want to share," then that's okay. We have to honor that. Okay? But it's not wrong to ask. It's not inappropriate to ask. And frankly, if there are repeated requests, it's reasonable for you to know what it is. Okay? Second, let me mention something else. There's a difference between somebody not sharing personal information and not sharing at all. Now, we get asked sometimes, "What do I do in one of my directs simply refuses to say anything at all?" Now, that's a different situation entirely. This is a work meeting. You are the boss. It's reasonable for you to schedule it and it's okay to expect your directs to come willing to talk. They don't have to talk about family stuff. On the other hand, you can expect them to talk about work because it is work and you're their boss at work. So that's a different situation. It's not as bad as you think it is. And we're going to cover that separately. But your directs are welcome to cross their arms and say, "No, I don't have anything to say." And then, of course, you get more time to talk about the stuff you want to talk about. Yeah. Generally about work, most of the time. Yeah. And one more thing. I know that sometimes people accuse us of being too forceful, even though we're not. Look, if your direct doesn't open up, doesn't share anything about work at all during the 30 minutes and essentially crosses their arms for months on end. Most reviews will give you an opportunity to downgrade them in terms of communication that you have a weekly meeting in order to find out what's going on to talk to them, build a relationship and they ignore the relationship piece and they won't tell you anything about the work they're doing. That's unprofessional. And you can downgrade them in communication for that. But again, we'll talk about that in a later case. Yeah. You could and should. But yeah. Okay. So what about the directs who want to talk about work or that's all they want to talk about really? I mean, that's fine, right? Yeah. Look, it's the opposite of, you know, what do I do if they won't share personal? It's not the opposite. It's maybe the twin of, what do I do if they won't share personal? Personal stuff, but it is a little bit of a different question. Look, it's simple. Suppose one of your directs came to you before you ever asked for one-on-ones before you even knew what they were and said, "Look, I want to start giving you a weekly update. No more than 10 to 15 minutes, all work reporting and some questions. Can we do that?" Right? If you don't say yes to that, you're not thinking very clearly. Right? Yeah. So if one of your directs focuses on work when you have your one-on-one with them, that's fine. Let them. In the first half of the one-on-one, it's their time anyway. They get set the agenda. They get to talk about whatever they want to talk about. There's not a secret agenda here to learn all their personal stuff. Remember? Frankly, we often hear from other managers when this question gets asked. One manager says, "What do I do if all they want to do is talk about work?" You know, other managers say they thought there was a problem when this happened to them initially, but they waited, right? They were happy to have the work updates, but they waited. Then gradually, over time, and this is very important, without it ever being on the agenda, bit by bit, they learn about their directs' lives and their families, and all that other stuff that gives them a more complete, a full, a better view of the person to help you have a full and effective relationship with the direct. It's simple. So if they start talking about work, let them. That's as they want to talk about. It's probably going to be impossible for them not to let slip and not to share at times stuff about the family, and that's a good thing. And some directs will immediately be personal. You do your first one on one, and you give them 15 minutes, and there you go. It just comes out, right? You may, in your first several one of ones, they may not talk about work at all. That is equally fine. Yes, absolutely. Hopefully this point is a no-brainer, but just to be clear, some of your directs are going to share and share and share and share. This is where we make the comment at conferences that, unfortunately, at some point, someone is going to feel comfortable enough to share something about bodily fluids with you. And that's probably too much information. And yet, that's a good sign because they feel comfortable talking to you. There's nothing wrong with it. Now, you hidey and high-see bosses out there. Don't get frustrated with your directs who share personal stuff that they're not having the one on one with you that you would have with them. That's normal, okay? This is their chance to develop a relationship with you. If they want to share personal stuff, let them. They're building a relationship with you, and that's a good thing. So I think that wraps it up. Look, one on ones are business meetings about a professional relationship. Every relationship you have is going to be different, so your one on ones are going to be different. Don't hijack it and try to make it about personal if your direct doesn't want to. Be patient. Sometimes, it takes a while for directs to open up. Some directs want to talk about work. Some directs want to talk about personal. Both of those things are okay. Remember, one on ones are designed to improve your communication with each of your directs. They're not to improve the results of your team, though that will happen. Focusing on individuals by communicating with individuals gets better team results because individuals perform better, and that makes the team's results better. You can't relate to a team of people. And if we're focusing on individuals, we've got to talk to them in ways that they can. makes sense to them. Some are more open about personal stuff, some aren't. You aren't failing if you're not talking about kids all the time. Okay, sure, it's likely to happen with some of your directs. And that's a good proxy we've found for the strength of a relationship. But it's not the only factor. And look, it is Mike and I have often said at conferences, if we worked for you, our one-on-ones would be almost all about work because we're high-deeds. That's it. Good. Thank you my friend. Next partner. We'll see you next week. Thanks everyone. That's it. We'll see you all again next week or on the website www.managertools.com. See you there. So long folks. [Music]