 Having effective one-on-one meetings with team members is one of the best tools, in my opinion, to drive better relationships with the team members, secondly improved engagement, third improved performance, fourth a culture of giving feedback and fifth individual and team development. Setting aside time to specifically develop team members, give feedback and build relationships sends an incredibly positive message to the entire team. I share five actions for effective one-on-one meetings with team members, so you get the most out of the time you invest in these meetings. These actions are, I break down what I have found works well for each of these five actions, experiment and work out which of the suggestions works best for you and employ as many of them as you can. My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25-year management career in corporates and household names through to SMEs. The one-on-one meetings I had each week with my team members were the most important meetings I had. The results the team consistently delivered paid back the time I invested many, many times over. Run effective one-on-one meetings and you get a huge amount back in return. And if you're new to this channel, Enhance.training shares business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that of your team and business. And if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. The first action for effective one-on-one meetings with team members is to work out how to use one-on-one meetings for maximum effect. For me, there are several vital reasons for holding one-on-one meetings with staff and five of these reasons are firstly, building strong trusting relationships, secondly, providing two-way feedback, thirdly, setting direction for the individual or agreeing on direction with the individual, fourth, providing coaching and mentoring to improve individuals' skills and performance, and fifth, the opportunity for two-way information sharing. There are plenty more benefits to have. These are my top five. So expanding on each quickly, building strong trusting relationships is a must. If you don't have trust and a positive relationship with your team member and vice-versa, then everything else you do is not going to be nearly as effective. You can't build relationships unless you spend time with a person. And your interactions have to be give and take. If you can't be on my street, I would suggest aiming to support and help your team member first before doing anything else and doing this consistently. A one-on-one meeting with the employee is a great space to spend quality time together. Secondly, you need feedback to improve. It is as simple as that. No one gets everything right first time and feedback gives you the opportunity to learn. You need feedback about how you manage and how best to help each individual and your team member needs to know what is going well and what needs improving. So give honest feedback and ask for honest feedback. Thirdly, setting direction or agreeing direction for the weaker heads or for a given project, task or problem is extremely useful from a management perspective. Set direction for the more junior members or those that need more help. And agree direction with your higher performance and experienced team members. Fourth, every one-on-one fit meeting is an opportunity to provide coaching support or an opportunity to share your experiences and learnings with a team member so they can get to great in terms of what they do more quickly and more easily. The quicker they learn and improve, the better the overall team performance, resulting in your managers viewing even more positively your management and leadership skills. And finally, two-way information sharing is super useful in these one-to-one meetings. You want to know what your employee is working on, what is happening, what the problems and roadblocks they're facing and they probably want to know what is going on around them in the team and above them that might impact their work. The better the communication and information sharing, the better everyone can do their roles well. The second action for effective one-on-one meetings with team members is to always book in weekly one-on-one meetings with all those reporting to you. I would also suggest insisting that your direct reports also book in one-on-one meetings weekly with each of their reports. Then you have set up a platform to build better relationships, provide feedback and coaching etc for each member of your team. If you don't want to invest in weekly meetings, then book in a one-to-one meeting with direct reports every other week. Each of the one-on-one meetings should be held in private. You can book a meeting room or go anywhere that is relatively private. Hold these meetings in person wherever you can or failing that on video call. Another option that might appeal to some of you is to do a walking meeting. Walking reduces tension, stimulates the brain with the activity and you are not facing each other so it makes discussing difficult subjects much easier. Steve Jobs for instance did a lot of walking meetings for all these reasons. Lastly make sure that your one-on-one meetings are booked at the same time each week and make sure that you are always on time for the meeting too. You don't want to be late or keep rearranging the meeting or anything else that might signal that the meeting is not important to you. The third action for effective one-on-one meetings with team members is to prepare for the one-on-one meeting. Creating a joint agenda will make your one-on-one meeting more effective. The best thing about creating a specific agenda for each meeting is both of you get a chance to do some thinking time before the meeting. The thinking time before the one-on-one meeting means better use of the time during the meeting. Ask for the key agenda items for the one-on-one meeting from your team member at least the day before. Share the items that you would like to talk about after you have received some input from them. Don't be tempted to impose your agenda onto the meeting. While quicker to do, it doesn't promote a partnership or make the meeting as useful for the other person. An alternative approach is having a standing agenda with space for additional specific items that either of you want to bring to the meeting. It can be tough to keep up with creating a bespoke agenda for each one-on-one meeting. So work out what best suits both of you for these meetings. Aim to speak less than your team member. This action ensures that they have the space and opportunity to speak about their key issues rather than responding to your issues. The fourth action for effective one-on-one meetings with team members is to work out how to conduct one-on-one meetings. There is a million and one ways to run one-on-one meetings and I suggest you play around with your approach to see what works best for the both of you. To get you started, here is an agenda that is a great place to start and I will talk you through each item quickly. You can move the agenda items around to suit what you need for each meeting. Start with checking in with the other person. Ask them how they are and what they have been up to. This section of the one-on-one meeting is about building the personal side of relationships. Check in that they are okay, happy, etc. The check-in often feeds quite neatly into the two-way information sharing. What have they achieved since the last meeting? What are their thoughts, their issues, etc. Find out what is happening in their world. As a manager, you are sitting in the middle of all the activity of the team and are more likely to know what is going on outside of the team too. Sharing relevant information to your team members role, work and projects is very useful for them and it helps them to do a better job. They also like to chat about the top two to five things that they are planning to achieve over the coming week. Then spending some time on goal updates is useful in each one-on-one meeting. This keeps the focus on the individual's goals and you get regular updates on progress and the opportunity to input and help as needed. If they are starting to fall behind on reaching their goals, you can step in and get them back on track earlier when it is easier and quicker to do. And don't forget to praise good progress, good quality work and results delivered. Most managers praise too little in general, so make the effort to praise where it is due. Coaching a team member in solving their problems is another very useful part of any one-on-one meeting. The more your team members can solve problems and the more you can trust them to solve problems, the better off you and the team will be. You are also making better use of their talents, hopefully why you hired them in the first place. And lastly, make any decisions appropriate for the one-to-one meeting. Throughout the one-on-one meeting, you should be providing feedback to your team member. I suggest that you favour a coaching style. You are asking questions to get the team member thinking rather than you telling them information. Adapt your style to the situation and the team member in front of you. As a manager, you also need feedback to improve. So ask your team member at the end of the one-to-one meeting or at any convenient point. Ask what should you continue, change or stop. Ask how you can help support them even better. Ask what management style works best for them. The more that they trust you, the more that you are likely to get useful feedback. So just listen to the feedback, don't challenge or disagree with the feedback during the meeting or you won't get any more feedback. And throughout the meeting, work hard to control any negative emotions. Keep yourself aware of your own reactions and your team members reactions when you are talking through each subject. Keep the meeting focused on helping your team member do an even better job and building strong trusting relationships with them. And lastly try to ensure that both of you leave the meeting with at least one action to do. The fifth action for effective one-to-one meetings with team members is to follow up. You know, you've had a great effective one-to-one meeting with the employee and you both leave the meeting energised and with actions agreed. You each rush off to the next meeting or go back to your desk to go through the next batch of emails, etc. I.e. everyone is busy and it is very easy to forget about the actions agreed. As a manager, it is your job to follow up on the actions agreed in the one-to-one meeting, otherwise you risk signalling the actions that are not that important to you. It is your job to set the example by doing your actions by the deadline agreed, otherwise you're signalling that it's okay to miss deadlines or not do the actions. A good practice to get into is emailing out the actions following the one-to-one meeting or add the actions to your project management software or share them in some written format. This provides a reference point for what actions were agreed. Then follow up the individual before the deadline for completing the actions, ask them where things are and how you can help support them. Offering support turns the emphasis of the follow-up into providing support rather than just chasing them. Work out what type of follow-up works best for you. Make sure you do follow up until the actions are done. So implement these five actions and as many of the tips included in this video and you'll have effective one-to-one meetings with team members that are useful and enjoyable for both parties. As a reminder, the five actions are firstly how to use one-to-one meetings, secondly book weekly one-to-one meetings, third preparation for one-to-one meetings, fourth how to conduct the actual meeting itself, and fifth following up after each meeting. And the benefits you get by making your one-to-one meetings as effective as possible are firstly, better relationships with team members, secondly, improved engagement, third, improved performance, and fourth, a culture of giving feedback, fifth, individual and team development. All these are great reasons to work hard improving how you use your one-to-one meetings with team members. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you as quickly as possible. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you soon.