HBR's 10 Must Reads 2024

Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings

by Steven G. Rogelberg

TURNOVER WAS HIGH on Bill’s team—higher, in fact, than on most other teams at his company. Although Bill thought of himself as a good manager, exit interviews with his departing team members suggested that they hadn’t felt meaningfully engaged or fully supported in their roles and had tended to step on one another’s toes with their assignments.

What, exactly, was Bill doing wrong? One area stood out when I spoke with him and his team: He held fewer regular one-on-one (1:1) meetings with his direct reports than his peers at the company did. When he did meet with team members individually, the subject tended to be a critical issue he needed help with rather than their work or their ...