1-1, 1 to 1, 1 on 1 … Which one to use?
If you get three leadership experts into a room and ask them what type of meeting should be used for the development of people you’ll probably get five different opinions. Here is mine:
It depends. Be pragmatic.
People who know me well, know that this is often an answer I give to many questions. Let’s take a look at what this meeting IS:
A process.
Using the RANA formulation:
This type of meeting is a process whereby two people meet with each other to discuss progress to some desired result(s).
We should be asking ourselves first:
What is the desired result?
Then:
What is the context?
And:
What are the inputs?
Once we define these parameters, we can then fine tune the process.
By result(s) I mean, whether this meeting is about:
The development of one of the coached / mentored person?
Follow up on specific career/development plan deliverables?
The follow up of specific project deliverables?
Providing access to a senior person to be available to ask questions / consult with on specific issues and opportunities?
Access to a senior person to get help in clearing development plan obstacles?
Chit chat?
By context I mean things like:
What industry are you in?
What are your time pressures and other potentially scarce resources?
What trade offs are at play? (there are always trade-offs)
By inputs I mean the following:
Who are the people involved in the process?
What are their needs?
A challenge here is that the mentor will be both facilitating and in content.
Where / what is the mentee / coached person’s zone of proximal development?
Is there a one size fits all answer to this type of meeting? My answer is emphatically NO!
The following discussion will deal specifically with the type of meeting whose desired result is primarily the development of the mentee / coached person. A secondary desired result that enables the primary goal is the building of a good relationship between the mentor and the mentee.
With the ideal mentee that is articulate, well prepared, organized and of high agency the 121 style where the meeting is largely led by the mentee is possible. The reality is that these people are almost unicorns. The unstructured 121 will be beyond the zone of proximal development for a lot of people, at least initially. It may also be beyond the ability of inexperienced mentors. For some people they will never get there and an unstructured 121 will be a mutual waste of time, and imposing a bit of structure where there is some agenda to be followed, and provides some prompting for the mentee to prepare for the meeting and ensure that the meeting is productive. This could include the use of an issue/opportunity type form to give definition of the issue to be discussed, making more efficient use of the mentor’s time and making the meeting more effective. Over time the level of externally imposed structure can and likely will decrease with other internally imposed structural elements coming into play.
When I was in the role of firm president, still doing project work, and mentoring a number of people, part of my context was that I was extremely time limited. We need to make the 1 on 1 meetings count.
Here is what I did, starting with why.
One of the worst things a leader can do with their time is to confetti it. Rather than have a half hour meeting to provide access for issues and a second one at another time for more direct coaching, I combined the two and found it better to have a meeting where we could move from one type of meeting to the other. This is the reality that leaders in a small firm, high growth, limited resource environment are faced with. Is this the perfectly optimal approach for the person’s development? Maybe not. However, “Confetti’ing” the leader’s time is not a good trade off in this case. The leader-mentor ends up less focused, more stressed, less able to make good decisions, and likely less capable of the mentoring that is needed. In the end, no one wins.
I’ll expand a little more on why I like the larger block of time, and reject the idea of breaking up the meetings into multiple smaller chunks. If a mentee is coming with a particularly challenging issue a half hour is probably not going to be enough get past the surface of the issue. There could be a number of underlying issues that need revealing, exploration, and discussion. This takes patience, time and focus. By blocking out the full hour in your schedule you will have the time to be able to dedicate to the mentee. What this non-verbally communicates to the mentee is that they matter to you.
I can not emphasize enough the ineffectiveness of “confetti’ing” of time, and multi-tasking. There is now a mountain of literature about the impact of constantly checking email, and that to refocus after an email check takes up to 15 minutes. The mentor is not some kind of super human that can instantly orient themselves into the world of the mentee. Even that super-human mentor will take 5-10 minutes to orient. The pre-work by the mentee is essential. Giving them some tools to do so, rather than having them reinvent the wheel makes sense. They can modify the tools as needed.
There is value to be generated in the synthesis of the transactional and the relational. To me, to run separate meetings and have one strictly focused on transactional and the other on the strictly relational is a waste of time for both people. Often a surface level transactional issue the mentee is dealing with is related to some other relational aspect they are working on.
Lastly is overscheduling. What I have found it that scheduling many back to back half hour meetings is totally ineffective. The cognitive load induced from task switching means that after four or five of these meetings, you are cooked. If you are scheduled back to back in this way all day, you never have time to DO any work, and you are not available for the inevitable interactions that are needed for consultation on issues and opportunities that come up needing your attention. There is the well known maxim that as your leadership role/responsibility increases the certainty of your scheduled time decreases. To be effective this uncertainty needs to be factored into how you schedule your time, including blocking time to DO and THINK, and “office hours”.
The 1-1 meetings are too important to not give them the full hour that your mentee needs, that your relationship with them needs.
The universal truth is that CONTEXT matters in selecting AND making adjustments to the process that will work for you.
My recommendation is to begin with the end in mind; that what matters in the 1-1 is:
The mentee has the mentor’s full attention
The mentor is capable of giving the full attention and being fully present
The mentee develops optimally in their zone of proximal development
There is no one size fits all solution as each mentee will have a different ZPD and needs.
The mentor and mentee develop a strong relationship
As mentees develop deeper tougher issues will be encountered that can only be addressed if there is a solid relationship in place.
The mentor cares about the mentee, and the mentee feels cared for and safe in the relationship
Keep this in mind and get to developing your people.
“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week”
-General George S. Patton
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing”
-1 Thessalonians 5:11