Do you ever look back at one-on-one meetings and wonder what would have happened if you’d behaved differently? Should you have pushed your team member harder about their missed deadlines or offered to pitch in and help? Did you spend too much time talking about personal issues and neglect to cover professional goals? Could you have gotten better results with a different strategy?
Sadly, we’ll never get a glimpse of all the alternate universes where we went left instead of right. But you can experiment with different choices in your one-on-one meetings.
Answer the questions, see the consequences of each choice, and play around until you get an outcome you like. Good luck!
For Managers, Every Choice Has Consequences
This choose-your-own-adventure exercise deals with a single issue in a single one-on-one meeting. In the real world, you’re dealing with many more variables, and the same strategy that worked with Sam might fall flat with her colleagues.
Nevertheless, this imaginary scenario illustrates the immense power managers have to determine the direction of a meeting. The questions you ask, the tone you set, and the support you offer can lead to dramatically different outcomes for your team. That’s why you need to bring your A-game to one-on-one check-ins, and approach each of them with care.
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