What Do 1-on-1s Really Mean?

“If someone tells you that you are an irritating boss, that is a huge gift they are giving you…”

As a leader, you have the responsibility to develop individuals on your team. One of the ways to move an employee forward is to gain insight on their thoughts about their place on the team. But how do you gain this insight?

This is the one of a ten-part series covering the sessions from Calibrate 2016, an engineering leadership conference held on September 30, 2016 in San Francisco.

Michael Ruggiero gives us his take on how to make 1 on 1s one of your most valuable managing tools using them to understand and inspire your team. The three questions you must ask yourself are:

1. What questions are you actually asking?
2. Are you really hearing what they are telling you?
3. What actions are a result of the conversation?

Michael provides us with different scenarios, techniques to receive deeper feedback, and how to identify actionable items from these meetings.