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Today I completed my first O3 with my direct reports. I am new to managing the team, making a lateral move from a different department. The team is a very high performing team. I have 12 direct reports.
[b]One on One Schedule[/b]
I decided to conduct my one on ones all on the same day. With 12 direct reports it means I spend the entire day focused on nothing but the one on ones. The team is geograpically dispersed, with members from California to Germany.
[b]The Good[/b]
Overall I think the one on ones were great. We are definately off to a great start in building the relationships. I also immediately get the value of taking great notes on the form MT provides (combining two great podcasts!). This will allow me to consistently follow-up on open issues. It will help me make sure I identify and follow-up on my actions as well as tracking my directs commitments.
[b]The Challenges[/b]
Time will tell if scheduling all my one on ones on the same day will work long term. Today was a whirlwind with no real time between meetings. The schedule is pretty tight. Any small delays in either my travel to the office or disruptive issues will really mess with the day. But having so many back to back meetings is having an energizing effect. Today I missed breakfast and had a very small lunch, but I didn't feel any ill effects. In fact I was completely energized throughout the entire day.
Preparation for my one on ones will pose a challenge. I was not as prepared as I could have been today. There were certainly additional topics I could have addressed in some of the one on ones had I spend more time detailing what I wanted to discuss during the one on one. I realize now I will have to set aside at least 1 hour on Tuesday to prepare for the one on ones.
Follow-up after the one on ones will pose a similar challenge to preparation. I barely had time to finalize some notes on the one on one form before I had to start the next one. I will need to schedule time on the day after the one on one to capture my actions from the one on ones.
[b]Conclusion[/b]
Overall a great experiance. I still have a lot to learn to become good at one on ones but that is to be expected.
The department I moved into conducts one on ones as a matter of normal business so the concept was not new to my directs. This was helpful and no one had any issues with having a one on one. The VP of the department essentially says to his managers "If you don't meet with your team members weekly, what am I paying you for?" However, there doesn't seem to be any type of structure to the one on ones (I certainly see that with the one on one I have with my boss). Several of my directs thanked me for conducting a one on one in the MT format saying the appreciated having some type of structure to meeting with a defined meeting goal. That kind of feedback from the team with only a week on the job tells me I am certainly on the right track. Of course I owe quite a lot to Mike and Mark for providing me with the tools to be effective in my new role immediately!
I hope this post has provided some value to this community.
MadAmos[/i]
My first One on One (long post)
I restarted doing One on Ones with my team not long ago. Like you, I do them all in one day.
It can be tiring but it has dramatically freed me from the many small updates I used to get through the week.
Hang in there.
My first One on One (long post)
Congratulations!
I actually take notes during the meeting. It follows my no secrets, no surprises rule. I keep a stash of the blank forms, already hole punched. I pull one out for each meeting. My team is used to it. They take their own notes but know that mine are available if they want to review something.
That way I don't have to trust my memory and neither do they.
Re: My first One on One (long post)
[quote="madamos"]Preparation for my one on ones will pose a challenge. I was not as prepared as I could have been today. There were certainly additional topics I could have addressed in some of the one on ones had I spend more time detailing what I wanted to discuss during the one on one. I realize now I will have to set aside at least 1 hour on Tuesday to prepare for the one on ones.[/quote]
That concerned me a bit ... I may have misunderstood, but if your focus is on what YOU want to discuss (i.e., a waterfall), the one-on-ones will be less effective. Of course, the focus on the one-on-one is on THEM.
Hopefully, I'm wrong here ...
Mike
My first One on One (long post)
Julia - I do take notes during the meeting. I take them right on the MT O3 form. I just need to schedule time the next day to capture all my to do's in my tracking system (Outlook tasks).
Mike - Unclear writing on my part. The O3 is completely focused on them. I found that since these were the first O3's and I am only 2 weeks into the job (and still learning a ton) for some team members the O3 was only 15 minutes long. They didn't share much with me, just some project updates, and I am not familiar enough with all their work to get updates on projects from them. I need to learn more about what they are doing so I can properly follow up on their projects and responsibilities.
Some team members did want to share a significant amount about themselves and we used the entire 30 minutes on just THEM.
MadAmos
My first One on One (long post)
This is what I do...
I spend about 30-45 minutes a week preparing for my 10 O3 meetings. Yes, the focus is on the direct, but there's still 10 minutes to talk about my topics, and 10 minutes to talk about coaching. Both of those take some time on my part to prepare. If nothing else, every few weeks I need to think about coaching for a few employees (I don't need to think about all employees every week, of course). Am I doing this wrong?
(I'll add that I started off spending 2 hours on this per week, until Mark posted that it should take 3 minutes each. He's right.)
After the meeting, the note sheet and folder get tossed in my inbox, and I'm ready for the next O3.
At the end of the day, I have about 30 minutes scheduled to process my inbox. That's when I do a quick scan of the O3 meeting notes, and transfer ToDos onto my "Next Actions List".
(Any similarity of this process to GTD is entirely uncoincidental :D )
--Rich
My first One on One (long post)
Madamos-
Congratulations on being off to a great start!
I went quickly from one day of back-to-back O3s to spreading them out over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Otherwise it was just to difficult for me to deal with the inevitable schedule disruptions that occur during the week.
My prep time time for the meetings has dropped a lot. I keep lists of next actions (thanks to David Allen and GTD for keeping me sane!) and find that I review them, look over the previous weeks' meeting and go. It's about a 2 minute prep.
The keys are the time spent and the focus on them. Keep it up!
Regards,
Lou