Leading one-on-one meetings for high productivity

Have you ever attended a meeting that felt like a waste of your precious time? Did you start thinking about the 100 better things you could be doing other than sitting in that meeting?  

I had a leader who had a habit of creating an agenda and like clockwork, about 20 minutes into the meeting, threw the agenda out the window and started digressing to talk about anything that came to their mind. It was frustrating. It threw off my whole day's schedule! I tried to tell them there was a better way but it didn't matter. They used the same approach every meeting. 

Are you guilty of leading meetings where your employees are thinking the same thing? Be honest. What does your team think about your meetings with them? Have you asked for their feedback?
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Effective communication is a skill especially as it relates to leading diverse teams. We either over or under communicate, are micro managers or relinquish responsibility all together, or we switch between the two options. Trust me, fierce friends, there is a better way. Lead one-on-one meetings with your team members with the below guiding points so they're empowered to succeed: 

1. Frequency – To lead your team effectively, look at having regularly scheduled, one-to-one, weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Regular meetings allow you to empower your team member’s progress on goals and projects, to get a status update of their work, remove obstacles, guide and coach them, and share relevant information.  
   
   
2. Structure – Your conversation with your team member should be focused on: 
   1. Getting updates from them. 
   2. Knowing where you need to make key decisions to allow them to move forward and then making those decisions.
   3. Staying connected on their progress towards their quarterly goals. 
   4. Learning the problems blocking their progress and supporting them to determine the best solution (remember, you don’t have to have all of the answers and, likely, the answer lies within your team member – coach them towards it!). 
      
      
3. Duration – Have you had meetings with your leader that seem to go on forever? Why is that? No agenda? Deviating from the agenda? Whatever the reason, it’s painful! It throws off your schedule for the day, if not, the whole week’s schedule.
   
   Aim for less than one hour. Have a shared agenda and stick to it. Provide advance notice on any topic that you need to dive deeper on so they are prepared. Do your best not to go over the meeting end time by building the agenda together and accurately estimating time for each item. If you find that you will need to go over time, let them know as soon as you are aware and ask if they have time to continue or if another time is preferred. You may be their leader, but you’re not the only person they’re meeting with that day.
   
   
4. Commitment – From time to time we have to adjust to unexpected changes in our personal or work priorities. Sick children, last minute project deliverable, and other events require us to monitor and modify our schedules regularly. Although you may prefer a different meeting day/time, your team member may have scheduled other meetings knowing that they’ll be able to speak with you and get answers from you about their projects at the regularly set time. Do your best not to reschedule or cancel your weekly meeting with them.
   
   

Approaching your team meetings with the above in mind will increase your bandwidth and will result in an engaged, highly productive and well-resourced team.

What are your thoughts on these guiding points? What have you found to be effective with your team meetings?

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