Do you have periodic one-on-one meetings with each of your employees?

I would imagine we all INTEND to do that, but … things get busy. It’s not critical. So these powerful conversations get delayed.

I’d say you don’t realize just how amazing these kinds of meetings can be. What’s the point?

Well, primarily you’re:

  • Letting the employee know that you support them and want to help
  • Conveying that you value them as a worker and as a person
  • Finding out about problems early

The hard part is that it’s not YOUR agenda which should be driving the meeting. Sure, you’d like to accomplish those bullet points, but that isn’t the subject matter that the employee wants to bring up. You’ll talk about issues which are troubling them. You might talk about the future of the group and their particular job. Perhaps even catch up on how their family is doing.

But what you ACCOMPLISH with this meeting is much deeper, much more meaningful, than the particular issues of the day.

And over the long run this turns into the employee wanting to continue to work for you and the organization. They feel safe enough to bring up problems, even ones which are poorly defined.

And they’ll want to bring their best abilities to doing great work for you.