Explore the surprising science of meetings and how to make them suck less with Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg, a renowned organizational psychologist and author of The Surprising Science of Meetings and Glad We Met: The Art & Science of 1:1 Meetings. He discusses with Kim and Amy why meetings often feel unproductive and costly, covering common pitfalls and offering actionable strategies to enhance their effectiveness.
Listen to the episode:
Episode at a Glance: Make Meetings Suck Less
- Meetings are a significant cost to organizations and need to be evaluated and improved.
- Framing meeting agendas as a set of questions to be answered can lead to more productive and engaging discussions.
- One-on-one meetings are highly valued by employees and have a positive impact on engagement and productivity.
- Managers should be good stewards of their employees’ time and create meaningful connections through one-on-one meetings. One-on-one meetings are crucial for building strong relationships and improving communication in the workplace.
- These meetings have a positive impact on employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity.
- Managers should prioritize one-on-one meetings and invest time and effort into building strong relationships with their direct reports.
- Setting clear agendas, soliciting feedback, and creating a safe and trusting environment are key elements of effective one-on-one meetings.
Radical Candor Podcast Resources
- Steven Rogelberg
- 7 Ways To Improve One-on-One Meetings | Radical Candor
- Effective 1:1s – Tips For One-on-One Meetings With Your Team | Radical Candor
- 3 Tips For How To Run Effective Staff Meetings | Radical Candor
- Glad we Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings — Steven Rogelberg, Ph.D.
- The Surprising Science of Meetings — Steven Rogelberg, Ph.D.
- Meet Like A Boss — The 411 On 1:1s | Radical Candor Podcast S2, Ep. 9
- Making Meetings Suck Less: Advice From Dr. Steven Rogelberg
The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Kim Scott: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Radical Candor Podcast. I’m Kim Scott.
[00:00:07] Amy Sandler: I’m Amy Sandler. And today we’re talking about a topic that you likely have some strong feelings about and is also a thing where you spend a lot of your time, and that is meetings. So we wanted to get some advice. Can I say have a meeting? Uh, we are so excited.
[00:00:26] Kim Scott: We’re having a conversation.
[00:00:28] Amy Sandler: Well, can’t meetings be conversations? We’re going to explore that and more with Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist who holds the title of Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. He’s an award winning teacher and researcher and the author of The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance. And that book has been on over twenty-five best of lists.
[00:00:55] In fact, Adam Grant has called Steven the world’s leading expert on how to fix meetings. Steven, your newest book, Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, recently came out and we’re really going to focus on that today. In fact, Dan Pink noted that you are the world’s leading scholar of meetings and that you’re unpacking the most important meeting of all. Which are these direct conversations between managers and team members.
[00:01:24] So we’re really excited to welcome you to our show and to talk about how we can make the most of our one on one meetings. Welcome, Steven.
[00:01:33] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here. It is truly an honor and a treat.
[00:01:39] Kim Scott: Well, I’ve been looking forward to chatting with you all weekend, actually, Steven.
[00:01:44] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Well, that’s awesome. Well, the last time we got to see each other, we were eating eyeball pie.
[00:01:49] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. We were having a dinner that was supposed to be very fancy. But I was joking with you later that my son, when he has sleepovers, when he has all his friends over, he’s fifteen. They dare each other to eat disgusting things. What’s a little bit of that at that dinner?
[00:02:11] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah, that’s fair. That is absolutely fair.
[00:02:13] Kim Scott: Did you eat the eyeball in the eyeball pie?
[00:02:15] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Oh my gosh, I did. I did.
[00:02:17] Kim Scott: I did not. I, so the eyeball pie was served next to a fish’s head and I, which was with its mouth wide open, and I dropped the eyeball into the fish’s mouth.
[00:02:29] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I’m going to say I regretted eating the eyeball, um, but I felt the pressure. You know, like you’re at this restaurant, it’s super fancy,
[00:02:38] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:02:38] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Supposedly it’s the greatest. So when someone serves you an eyeball pie, you’re like, oh, I guess I should eat the eyeball pie. But no, it did not rock my world, it only filled me with an eyeball and regret.
[00:02:51] Kim Scott: And what did it taste like, the eyeball?
[00:02:53] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Oh, just your typical eyeball.
[00:02:56] Kim Scott: Was it salty? Was it like caviar? What was it like?
[00:03:01] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: What was the eyeball like? Alright, you’re gonna reintroduce my trauma. You know, this was apitherapy.
[00:03:05] Kim Scott: I’m sorry, i’m sorry.
[00:03:06] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: You know, yeah, I think it was just kind of like a salty little ball of eyeball yuck.
[00:03:17] Amy Sandler: Well, I’m not sure the best segue here, although if this was on video, my eyeballs have been, uh, quite overextended, popping. Um, was this the first time the two of you met, uh, at this fancy dinner or had you, uh, been acquainted previously?
[00:03:33] Kim Scott: We were, yeah, we were at a conference together and the conference was great. We had a great time at the conference and the conference organizers did a really good job of kind of creating community among all the speakers. So it it was great. We, uh, we had a good time. And our spouses were there.
[00:03:52] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah. That was really fun. And it’s called the President’s Summit and it’s kind of like a Denmark’s head event. And so I think Kim went on right before me, loved her work, was so good. And it connected so much with my content, um, as well. So, yeah, we were just quick, fast friends, and, like, let’s find excuses to do more together.
[00:04:17] Kim Scott: So here we are.
[00:04:18] Amy Sandler: Here we are. Well, this is exciting. And again, your topic, Steven, is something that I think we all have strong feelings about. In fact, one of the pieces of data I found most fascinating was, you said there are one billion meetings happening every day. Is that, am I overstating, or is that actually, um, a piece of data that you have uncovered?
[00:04:44] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: No, that’s true. Um, in fact, it’s probably, it’s a conservative estimate.
[00:04:48] Kim Scott: Yeah, I’m gonna, I’m guessing it’s two billion, at least.
[00:04:52] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah, it’s conservative. I mean, when I was doing these estimates, I just tried to keep right, rounding down.
[00:04:56] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:04:57] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Because really, once you hit a billion, it doesn’t matter anymore if you say two billion. So, yeah, so that’s, but that, yeah, that’s a fair estimate. Um, it’s only increased. Um, during COVID, it was hitting highs. Um, I’d like to say when the pandemic ended, meetings went away, but they didn’t.
[00:05:15] Kim Scott: No. No.
[00:05:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: There’s been some retraction, but it’s pretty minor. Um, yeah, because once you start having meetings, right? It’s easy to put a meeting on and it’s hard to get rid of it.
[00:05:25] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:05:25] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And so they just keep increasing.
[00:05:27] Kim Scott: Yeah, they’re kind of like barnacles. You gotta scrape them off your ship or your ship will stop in the water.
[00:05:33] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: It’s exactly like barnacles. It’s exactly, there’s no difference.
[00:05:39] Kim Scott: And how many people are in the average meeting?
[00:05:43] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Um, so that’s a trickier question, uh, to answer. Um, ’cause we just know, I mean, basically we can, you know, harvest this calendar data just to know how many hours, how many meetings we’re in. But typical meeting sizes are between four and seven, probably the most common.
[00:06:02] Kim Scott: Yeah. So let’s call it five and let’s say it’s an hour, that’s five billion hours of person hours of meetings per day.
[00:06:10] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah. And that was, we actually use low end estimates of annual wages to kind of figure out the investment. You know, what’s so fascinating about meetings, it’s, I mean, it’s literally, or I should say it’s arguably the most expensive thing organizations do that they don’t evaluate in any way.
[00:06:30] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:30] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So meetings cost more than IT for an organization. And yet with IT, we have a chief technology officer, a CIO.
[00:06:40] Kim Scott: It’s a lot of scrutiny.
[00:06:41] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah. But when it comes to meetings, we’re like, no, no, let’s just keep having more. One estimate was around fifteen percent of your entire personnel budget is meetings. That’s a massive expenditure.
[00:06:53] Kim Scott: Yes. And so what does that billion meetings cost the economy every day? Rough. Did you?
[00:06:59] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Trillion, yeah, yeah, it was in there too. Yeah, it’s crazy.
[00:07:03] Amy Sandler: Well, and when you talk about, you know, the cost, both the financial costs, the human time cost. One of the other pieces of data was that you said that, when people are asked, what is the biggest time waster for them at work? Um, it’s too many meetings. And so I wonder before we get into the one on one meetings, which will be our focus for today, what is your, maybe top one, two or three things? Obviously we need meetings, but how should people, if you’re thinking about reducing the time wasting and the money wasting component of meetings. What would you say your top tips are, uh, are for folks,
[00:07:40] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Sure.
[00:07:40] Amy Sandler: As they think about larger, these five to seven people meetings?
[00:07:43] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Um, I mean, there’s so many. Um, you know, these are, people are terrible at running meetings. Um, and they think they’re good at it, which is a terrible combination. Um, you know, when you survey people leaving a meeting, the leader thinks it went well and the attendees don’t. So there’s this misperception that tends to perpetuate, like, these bad meeting practices.
[00:08:08] So if we know, like, everyone says meetings are a problem. Well, why aren’t they getting better? Well, if you think you’re good at it, then basically you keep saying it’s someone else’s problem. But I guess a couple things that I would love to see organizations doing going forward is one, it’s time to have a meeting about meetings.
[00:08:24] Yes, I know the irony. But yeah, we need to take a step back and talk about them. We need to take a step back and start saying, is this meeting necessary? What about this meeting? What about this one? Who needs to be there? And for those people who aren’t there, how do we keep them in the loop? So we want to start normalizing conversation so we can start fixing it.
[00:08:44] Instead of just giving energy to the grousing and the complaints. Let’s take that energy and make it work for us. So let’s start plotting a new future of work where meetings can be described in a more positive way. And that starts with these conversations. And then when it comes down to, you know, some specifics.
[00:09:03] Um, so first of all, from an organizational perspective, um, we need someone on the leadership team to hold up their hand and say, I own meetings. I’m going to own this critical work process. I’m going to make sure that this is working for us. Um, build feedback and accountability systems, right? So look at your engagement survey. Is there any content on meetings? I know the answer is going to be no, and there should be. We need to start providing feedback and accountability. How can we do better if there’s no feedback or accountability?
[00:09:34] So we need to start creating a ecosystem where bad meetings are just not accepted as the cost of doing business. Instead, we are dedicated to making these truly work for us. And then when you start getting in, and I’ll just share this one last thing and then I’ll stop. When we start getting into the weeds of the actual meeting, I’m going to share with you my favorite intervention, which is instead of framing your agenda as a set of topics to be discussed, consider framing your agenda as a set of questions to be answered.
[00:10:08] And by framing your agenda as a set of questions to be answered, now you actually have to stop and think about why you’re having a meeting, right? It’s to answer these questions. And by having an agenda framed as questions, you know, you know who to invite to the meeting, they’re relevant to the questions, you know if the meeting has been successful, because the questions have been answered. By framing your agenda items as questions, you created a challenge that draws people in. And if you just can’t think of any questions, it likely means you don’t need a meeting.
[00:10:36] Kim Scott: So I’m guilty of sometimes calling meetings because I know we need to figure something out, but I haven’t done the work alone of figuring it out and I want to talk to, I want somebody else to do. Uh, and so my temptation would be, what should I be asking you? That’s the agenda. Like, how do you make sure, like, how do you make sure that these, that the questions that you’re asking are actually valuable questions?
[00:11:01] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Well, they should tie to something strategic and important.
[00:11:05] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:11:05] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So your question is, I’m struggling with how to come up with some app or program to address this challenge. That’s a great question.
[00:11:16] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:11:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Like that’s going to draw folks in. And it reflects really well on you as a leader, right? You’re being candid.
[00:11:23] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:11:24] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Right? Transparent.
[00:11:25] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes.
[00:11:25] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And that just draws people in. I mean, it’s hard to find a human being that doesn’t jump at the possibility of answering a question.
[00:11:33] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. We instinctively want to do that.
[00:11:36] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: It’s just, we’re wired that way.
[00:11:39] Kim Scott: I know I’m putting you on the spot because I haven’t talked to you about this before. But I would, I have a question for you.
[00:11:45] This is, so one of my favorite ideas that we’ve never done anything about. So here’s a question for you. My hypothesis is that part of what goes wrong in meetings is that there’s a lot that goes unsaid. There’s a lot of ruinous empathy in meetings in Radical Candor speak. So one of the things, do you remember that Simon Says game where there were four buttons and you would hit the button?
[00:12:07] One of the things that I would love to do is to, uh to create a sort of like a Radical Candor framework where you could hit the ruinous of empathy button if you feel like something’s going unsaid. What would that do to a meeting that kind of, or you could hit if somebody says something rude somebody could hit obnoxious aggression. Would that itself be obnoxiously aggressive? I think that’s what Amy is thinking.
[00:12:36] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Would they get a little shock if?
[00:12:38] Kim Scott: No, no, there’s no electric, there’s no electric shock.
[00:12:42] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So I would say that actually just joking around around it, is actually a fantastic intervention.
[00:12:51] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:12:52] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Because ultimately what you’re doing is you’re creating norms, right? You’re being explicit around the types of conversations that we want to have.
[00:12:59] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:13:00] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: That’s a great thing to do because we don’t have that. Those conversations aren’t taking place.
[00:13:05] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So I would say that while I don’t know if you actually need the device. Talking about the device, showing a potential device just gets people to realize that the rules of engagement are going to be different, right?
[00:13:20] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:13:20] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: We want to honor people’s time, we want to make this worthwhile.
[00:13:23] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:13:23] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And to make it worthwhile, we have to listen effectively and we have to engage effectively and let’s get that norm out there.
[00:13:32] Kim Scott: Yeah. And what about soliciting feedback at the end of the meeting about the utility of the meeting? Like that might give the person who led the meeting a pretty good signal about whether people found it effective or not. What do you think about that?
[00:13:44] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I mean, the tricky. Kim, you know this more than I do. I mean, the tricky thing is people don’t, they’re not candid.
[00:13:51] Kim Scott: Yes. But they,
[00:13:53] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: They feel pressure,
[00:13:54] Kim Scott: To say, yeah, that was great.
[00:13:55] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Exactly. And the other thing that we found in our work is people have been beaten down so much by meetings that they basically think they’re all going to be horrible. So if it’s not really, really horrible, they say, yeah, that’s good.
[00:14:09] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:11] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So that’s why like what we found when we, you know, when we do these assessments of meeting effectiveness, we actually have to do it in very subtle ways. Um, and so I do these assessments with organizations about trying to create a dashboard, um, around their meetings and to set, assess return on investment. And you just can’t ask people, how good are your meeting? You actually have to kind of break down the time.
[00:14:34] So you want people to kind of reflect on the minutes in the meetings. And then you’ll start to get at the ineffectiveness. But, you know, one of the things that emerged, um, is that when I, we did these interviews of thousands of leaders and we asked them, or thousands of attendees, what are the characteristics of the best meeting leaders? And what emerged is this notion of stewardship. That the best meeting leaders recognize that inherently they are a steward of others time.
[00:15:02] And when you think about that expression, being a steward of others time. That means that the thought of people leaving your meeting saying it was a terrible waste is so uncomfortable to you that you take a couple minutes and you become intentional, right?
[00:15:16] You say, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s the plan. Here’s, I’m thinking about challenges I might have, and I’m thinking about ways of dealing with it. In so many regards, it’s what you all did before this conversation, right? So we’ve all done a million podcasts, but still, before we did this, you created a plan of action, right?
[00:15:35] You took a few minutes and said, hey, here’s what the potential conversation go, you know, what do you think? Does this seem valuable? That was good stewardship behavior. And so when leaders are, they embrace this notion of stewardship, they start making thoughtful choices. And interestingly, people act like stewards all the time when the meeting is with an important player, right?
[00:15:59] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:15:59] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: A key boss, a key customer. But when it comes to meeting with our peers or our team, we put our stewardship away.
[00:16:05] Amy Sandler: It’s kind of like putting out the nice china for the guests or something like that and how to show folks that we care. Um, with my responsibility to being a good steward of time, I do want to get us into one on one meetings.
[00:16:20] But before we do, I, there’s obviously so much that we could talk about, Steven, in terms of larger meetings. And I just want to make sure that I’m clear on what you and Kim were talking about. If there is ruinous empathy or obnoxious aggression happening in a meeting. So, from a Radical Candor perspective, we would talk about wanting to have criticism done privately, Kim.
[00:16:42] But it sounds like there can be a way, and maybe humor is a good way, Steven, to establish norms of how do we, um, speak up in meetings or how do, so one of the things, Kim, that you do in your meetings is to be really clear on maybe having a role. What kind of meeting is it? Is it a debate meeting or is it a decide meeting?
[00:17:00] And so I’m wondering, Steven, before we move into one on ones, is there, besides using humor, are there any other norms that you have found especially helpful, um, that would fall into that not wanting to criticize people publicly. But to kind of everyone own a part in feeling able to speak up in a meeting that you found especially helpful?
[00:17:20] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I’ll take it in a different direction and tell me if this is okay with you. Um, this is, it’s going to seem like a tangent, but it’s not, but see what, see how it lands. One of the greatest tools for creating awesome conversations is silence. Silence, that when groups brainstorm in silence, just type directly into a shared document versus brainstorming with their mouths. Those groups brainstorming in silence generated nearly twice as many ideas, and the ideas generated were more disruptive and more creative.
[00:17:56] And when you stop and think, why is that the case? Why would silence unleash all this stuff? Well, everyone can talk at once, right? You’re less influenced by that boss’s voice at the beginning. Um, it’s much more easy to deal with disagreement because you can just be constructive and generating ideas.
[00:18:16] You know, you’re adding comments which don’t come across as aggressive. So I think a lot of the principles that Kim has talked about can actually happen very naturally when the meeting is done silently, which is kind of ironic. But it’s true, right? You’re still, you have very, um, powerful communication when it’s done in silence.
[00:18:40] And in so many regards, right? We always privilege people who are comfortable speaking. Well, there’s a lot of people who are much more comfortable writing. Um, you know, my wife is a great example of that. Like, we, okay, like, we would have a, like, a disagreement. This could be early on in our marriage where we would have more disagreements.
[00:19:00] And I thought it was done, but then I would get an email. And that email would rip me to pieces and all my arguments would just come crumbling down. Because writing was her effective medium for being candid and transparent, and for engaging with this information much more critically. So, we can establish norms around communication and what we’re looking for, which will actually go a long way, right?
[00:19:29] When you tell people, listen, we’re going to keep our contributions to under a minute. We’re going to keep them short. We want to make sure that you build off of others conversations. We want this, you know, we want constructive conflict, right? You know, just, um, we want conflict. We want to be resolved constructively, right?
[00:19:48] You can get people to display those behaviors if you basically establish that it’s critical that they display these behaviors. With this all said, Amy, I want to make your job even easier. I’m going to give you the perfect segue for one on ones.
[00:20:03] Amy Sandler: Oh, thank you. Yes, segue away.
[00:20:06] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So, we’ve slammed meetings pretty hard. We said there’s a billion of them, you know, people are pulling their hair out. True, true, true.
[00:20:14] But in the research, there’s one meeting type that people actually want more of, not less. And that is the one on one. And that was fascinating to me. Um, and so when we looked at the, and we collected this, this was multiple countries. And we looked at different levels of leaders, and yet this, there was this longing for this meaningful engagement with their manager.
[00:20:43] And so let me back up now and tell you what I mean by a one on one meeting. So we’re kind of all on the same page.
[00:20:50] Amy Sandler: Yeah.
[00:20:50] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Because obviously there’s tons of one on one conversations in an organization. That’s not what I want. When I talk about a one on one meeting, I’m talking about a meeting that’s facilitated and orchestrated by a manager, but it’s not for them, it’s for their people. It is a meeting designed to better understand the thoughts and needs and desires of the employee. And by doing so, engage with them on a journey of discovery and meeting the needs that exist.
[00:21:23] So the types of utterances from the manager are things like, help me understand, tell me more, what are your thoughts on how to handle this, how can I better support you, right? What else do you need that I can help with?
[00:21:34] And so that’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about this one on one. It’s a meeting about bringing humanity back into the workplace. Not because it’s just not, it’s great to have humanity in the workplace, but it’s actually really good business.
[00:21:50] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:21:50] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Because the data is also really consistent that when managers have these one on ones with their people, individuals are more engaged, they’re more productive. Teams actually meet their goals more readily. I mean, this research is not like these rinky dink studies. This was a study that was done by Gallup that involved over a million managers.
[00:22:12] Kim Scott: Wow.
[00:22:12] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And there was a strong connection between these one on ones done well and employees thriving. And we actually know this, and I’ll stop after this statement. That when we think about people leaving an organization, we’ve all heard the adage, right? People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.
[00:22:30] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:22:30] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And one on ones are your opportunity to prove you’re not a bad boss.
[00:22:36] Kim Scott: Yes, by listening. I mean, like, you don’t get to set the agenda of the one on one, your employee, the person.
[00:22:42] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Exactly.
[00:22:42] Kim Scott: It’s like, it’s another opportunity for you to lay your power down. And get on a level playing field and really be a thought partner to each of your direct reports. That’s what it’s all about. Totally agree.
[00:22:57] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: It’s connection. It’s genuine connection. It’s non egocentric listening. It’s going where this other person is.
[00:23:04] Kim Scott: Yep.
[00:23:04] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And meet them there and support them.
[00:23:07] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:23:07] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And that’s what everyone craves, right? People don’t crave, like, they, I mean, you think about COVID. What people really missed was meaningful connection.
[00:23:18] Kim Scott: Yeah, real human conversation.
[00:23:20] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Real human conversation.
[00:23:21] Kim Scott: And that’s, yeah, a hundred percent agree. And it’s so funny because I think very often managers will say something along the lines of, oh, you know, I don’t want to get in my people’s way. I don’t want to, you know, I don’t want to micromanage. And so I’m not going to spend any time with my direct report.
[00:23:42] And that is a disaster. I, when I was, uh, working with Dick Costolo to develop this class called Managing at Twitter, he was like, that is ridiculous when people do that, imagine if I went home and told my wife I don’t want to micromanage you raising the children. So I’m not going to show up at dinner to, like that, that would not go well, you know.
[00:24:05] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: You’re right, you’re so right.
[00:24:07] Kim Scott: And so if you remember that core to being a good boss is the relationship that you have with each of your direct reports. Relationships need time, you cannot build a relationship unless you spend time with people and they don’t happen by magic. Like imagine if you said the secret to a good, uh, a good marriage is to choose the right person and never spend another minute with them.
[00:24:32] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Right.
[00:24:33] Kim Scott: Like, that’s not gonna work.
[00:24:35] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: That’s right.
[00:24:35] Kim Scott: Uh, and it’s the same thing between direct reports. I mean, it’s not a marriage, it’s not a romance, like, I want to be real clear about that. But that basic truism about human relationships applies.
[00:24:48] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: It’s so true. Um, so first about the micromanaging piece, the, yeah, in my book, I talked, I had these frequently asked questions that directs can have when a manager wants to roll out the one on ones. And one of the questions is, well, you know, is this about micromanaging my stuff? And the question, the answer is, it’s about micromanaging if you micromanage.
[00:25:09] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:25:12] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Just don’t micromanage, just have a conversation on someone else’s term.
[00:25:15] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:25:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Um, and so therefore don’t make it about metric tracking unless the employee wants to talk about it.
[00:25:21] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:25:21] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Like you can get updates, status updates, you can get metric tracking updates, lots of different ways. Let’s just make this twenty or thirty minutes about a relationship.
[00:25:30] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:25:30] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And a conversation. And again, like you might have a manager says, oh, well I don’t have time. You know, I don’t need to babysit people. I don’t need these relation, just do your job. But it is so good for business.
[00:25:43] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:25:43] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: It is an investment that pays dividends. And so even if you remove the fact that one of the best predictors of life satisfaction is the helping of other humans. So let’s even remove that this is good for you when you help other people. Removing that, the fact is that if you have greater retention of your top talent, right? If people are more coordinated and aligned, if people don’t have to keep reworking what they were doing because they’re having these conversations, you’re saving time.
[00:26:15] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:26:15] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And one of the surprising things that emerged in some data was the fact that managers, when they made the investment, actually reported less interruptions. Because employees would just save their issues for the one on one. So as opposed to constantly checking in with the manager, they felt more confident because they knew they would have this opportunity.
[00:26:37] Kim Scott: Yeah, I think that’s so, so important. By the way, I think another mistake that managers make about their one on ones is they think that they should save their feedback up to give their employees feedback in a one on one. And I strongly recommend don’t use the one on one time that way. The best time to give, uh, any kind of, especially critical feedback but also praise, is in these impromptu in the moment kind of conversations. The time to the, I would say the one exception, the one thing you as the manager get to put on the agenda of the one on one is save five minutes at the end to solicit feedback. Don’t give it, but ask, this is your time to ask, you know, what could I do or stop doing that would make it easier to work with me or whatever question. Don’t ask my, you know, if you sound like Kim Scott, people won’t believe that you want the answer.
[00:27:31] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah.
[00:27:31] Kim Scott: Figure out how to solicit feedback in your world, but don’t give it.
[00:27:35] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah. I love that. Um, so what you can do in a one on one, um, is you could ask the direct, is there any feedback that I can share with you that would be helpful?
[00:27:45] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:27:45] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And so you can let them, right? You can set the stage for them asking you for feedback. But yeah, if you have a performance issue or something, you need to provide feedback, do it elsewhere.
[00:27:56] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:27:56] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Like when it’s timely, um, because again, I don’t want to pollute the intention of this one on one. And, um, and then I do, I love the idea, Kim, of providing an opportunity for the employee to provide you with feedback.
[00:28:10] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:28:11] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Now, with that said, though, you do need to build that trust, right?
[00:28:16] Kim Scott: Yeah, yes.
[00:28:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And that’s where you can’t start with that, but ultimately, if you can move to that model where the employee feels comfortable and safe to be candid. Uh, I mean, now, you know, you have a healthy team.
[00:28:30] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they’ll never feel comfortable. Sorry, Amy, I interrupted. I don’t think they’ll ever feel comfortable. But if they know that their candor will be rewarded, then they’ll do it anyway. Sorry, Amy.
[00:28:42] Amy Sandler: Yeah, no, no, no. I was, I mean, I think just bringing in that idea of trust and safety for folks who are listening, Steven, whether I’m a new manager or whether I really haven’t been doing one on ones and I’m trying to get started. Can you walk us through actually some of the practical tips of like, how do I get started? Let’s say, uh, you’ve got this new hire, Kim, uh, you know, what are you going to do to reach out to Kim? What are you going to say in that outreach, set up the idea of one on ones and how are you going to actually start the meeting?
[00:29:12] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: There’s a lot there.
[00:29:13] Amy Sandler: Yeah. Wherever you want to start. How do you get started?
[00:29:18] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: So first of all, I mean, when you roll these out, um, this idea, or if you reboot it. Tie it to your values and to the organization’s value. You know, people are very skeptical if they think this is just a flavor of the month. But if you say, listen, core to me as a manager is elevating and supporting my people, helping others thrive. This is so important to me. And in that spirit, I’m going to do these one on ones. And we will go through these one on ones, we’ll solicit feedback, we’re going to make these work. But ultimately, these are about elevating you and the team. And I think to the extent that it does tie to values, it just feels more real. And so that’s how I recommend kind of rolling it out. Let’s tie it to something important.
[00:30:05] In fact, in the last chapter of my book, the second book, The Glad We Met, I actually took all these organizational mission statements and value statements and just showed how they completely fit with one on ones, and they do.
[00:30:18] Um, so rolling this out effectively matters. Then you got to pick a cadence, um, and generally what the, when you ask people that preferred cadences, it’s typically weekly or every other week. Um, the most desired cadence was weekly by the way. And what was also found though in the research is that the cadence that had the most positive outcomes was also weekly. Um, because going back to like what Kim said, like, you know, if you’re trying to build a connection, a meaningful connection, you have to do it with momentum.
[00:30:51] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:30:52] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Right? So imagine if you have a monthly conversation with your partner, that relationship’s not going to really thrive.
[00:30:58] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:58] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And so that regularity is really important. But here’s the cool thing, the data on having these regular, totally clear. The amount of time in the one on one mattered much less, it’s quality of the minutes. So if you do this weekly and it’s twenty awesome minutes, you’re going to get the benefit. But it’s about the quality.
[00:31:22] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:31:23] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And I really love that.
[00:31:24] Amy Sandler: I think that is, yeah, that is so helpful, especially when people are feeling really time crunched. There was something interesting, correct me if I got this wrong, Steven. Because Kim and I have talked about this a bit which is, you know, Kim, uh, we love this idea of like going for a walk, like walking and talking while we’re on meetings or getting away from the video camera and some of the research on that. I’m curious, it looked from your data that actually meeting in the boss’s office was most preferred. Am I getting that right? Like where, that was kind of interesting.
[00:31:53] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah, we laid out all the various locations that one on one could be. And the one that, um, was rated most desirably was either in the manager’s office or conference room. Um, the lowest rated was actually in the employee’s office.
[00:32:08] Um, and then when it came to walking, it was a bimodal distribution. So there were some folks who absolutely loved it, and others that didn’t. So the takeaway from that is just simply to ask your direct, where would you like to have this? That’s a nice signal, right?
[00:32:26] So these one on ones convey signals. I love this notion of leader signals. And the things we do and don’t do all become signals to our employees about who we are as leaders. And so when we say, listen, where would you like to have this meeting? That’s a signal, right? That’s a signal that this is not your typical meeting, this is for you. Um, when, and imagine if we don’t do these one on ones, what is that signal?
[00:32:52] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:32:53] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Right? And I think that’s really important. You know, the questions we lead with are signals, right? So if our question, we start with, hey, give me a rundown of all your projects. That’s a signal that this is not for you. This is for me to get information. I need, I can control things.
[00:33:10] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:11] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: But if I ask you as a signal, listen, I’m interested in how you are. And I’m going to give you a twist on this question, though. I’m not saying this to the employee. So the general question of how are you actually doesn’t work. Um,
[00:33:24] Kim Scott: Yeah, because there’s one answer, fine.
[00:33:26] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Right, right. If you do a twist, right? You say, listen, I’m interested in how you are. But I want you to answer it on a ten point scale with one being horrible, ten being great, how are you? Now you get scores of sixes, of sevens, of eights. And then you can say, oh, tell me more, or how can I help you become an eight, right?
[00:33:47] So you get data to work with. That becomes a signal again, to your employees that this is different, that you are generally interested. You’re not just dialing it in. So to get us started, we roll it out effectively. Um, we pick a cadence of every week or every other week. We make sure that we let the employee drive the agenda.
[00:34:11] Um, now we can say, listen, here are a set of core questions that I could ask you. Do you want, do these work for you, right? So that’s a totally fine approach. Or we could do the listing approach where you tell the employee, hey, this is going to be a meeting for you. Come with a list of topics that you want to talk about.
[00:34:29] But when you do that, make sure you tell them to think big picture, small picture, think people, think team. Because otherwise, if you just leave it open ended, they’re going to come with a, their rundown of tasks. Because they think that’s what you want to hear. You have to really prime them to think about their list. And then when you’re in that meeting, you just get comfortable with help me understand. Tell me more, um, when someone asks you for a potential solution. Keep your mouth shut before, and then ask them, what are your thoughts on how to handle it? And then when they share with you an idea, unless the idea makes you vomit, go with their idea, right? We don’t need to demotivate them by just saying, oh, if it doesn’t match my magical idea, you know, we’re not doing it, right?
[00:35:15] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:35:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Let’s allow them space to try something and learn from it again, unless it causes us a really vomit. And then, you know, the close is really important, right? The close of these things is where we come together and make sure that we have clarity around what was agreed upon. You know, so here’s what I committed to doing and you said you were going to do this, fabulous. Um, and then documented, you know, some level of,
[00:35:40] Kim Scott: By the way, sorry to interrupt. But you said something really important right there. I think the manager should come out with action items. The direct report should not, as a general rule, come out with action items at this meeting.
[00:35:51] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I would agree. I agree. The thing that the direct could do as their pseudo action item is, let’s say you’ve talked about a strategy for dealing with a particular issue, and so hopefully the direct will then feel motivated to address that.
[00:36:05] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:36:05] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: But it’s a different type of an action item than a manager is committing to do something to help that other person.
[00:36:10] Kim Scott: Yeah. The more committing to help action items you come out of the meeting with, the more successful the meeting is.
[00:36:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Exactly. And then the final thing I would say is, you know, evaluate these things, right? Just to make sure it’s really working, check in with the employee and just say, listen, I want this to work for you. How, what can we do better? What should we change up? You know, depending on your relationships, you could do it in a one on one, you know, a conversation or administer a survey where you just ask all your directs, you know, start, stop, continue. And, you know, let’s just make this thing work for everyone.
[00:36:54] Kim Scott: One of the things I found in my coaching experience is that sometimes a leader will decide that they’re going to have all their one on ones on one day of the week. And I think that’s a huge mistake because it’s tiring. Like listening to people is really tire.
[00:37:11] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah.
[00:37:11] Kim Scott: It requires something of you. And if you do them all in one day, you’ll, by the last one, you’ll no longer be able to listen and you’ll start to hate them. So I think one of the things that I recommend, ’cause I mean, I’ve been there, you’re so busy and you start to think, ah, you know, I would really like this thirty minutes to myself or this hour to myself. Uh, I tried to start to treat one on ones like lunches with, like, with people, with friends, or with people who I really wanted to see.
[00:37:43] Uh, because I found that often I’d go to a conference, and I’d meet somebody interesting. And I’d say, let’s meet for lunch, and I’d be looking forward to that lunch all day. And I tried to bring that mindset to my one on ones.
[00:37:55] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I love it.
[00:37:56] Kim Scott: Like, but because these are people you’re working with, and it should be a pleasure to have a conversation with this person.
[00:38:04] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I love it. No, there’s nothing I disagree with that. And, um, we recently published a study, um, this is not what you’re talking about, but it moves into the scheduling realm. You know, generally, and this, we actually, this was also dated from Google. People are most productive and feel better about their day when meetings are more clustered together. Or clustered around natural breaks because that way they’re not interrupted over and over again. So they still have opportunities for flow.
[00:38:37] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:38:38] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: But what also emerged, and this came from Microsoft and their analysis, it must’ve been, it was over a million meetings. That you need an interval between meetings, that basically fifteen minutes between meetings where people can kind of collect themselves, take a bio break, that. So if meetings were clustered together with fifteen minute intervals between them, so therefore they had some time for flow later, that was the optimal day.
[00:39:04] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And figuring out how long a chunk of time you need for your flow is key. Like when I first started writing, I would block these four hour chunks of time and I found I can’t concentrate more than an hour and a half. There are some people who can, but like figuring out how much alone time you need in your calendar and blocking that time is also, I think, great.
[00:39:26] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I feel like this is such a great opportunity for meeting, um, you know, obviously I’m a meeting scientist, but I think this is such a great opportunity for meetings research is, you know, just getting people to start being more thoughtful about how they schedule their meetings.
[00:39:38] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:39:39] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And because right now they’re not. And so we don’t at all embrace this literature around flow and interruptions. And I think if people were more thoughtful, it just wouldn’t have the same types of negative effects on people’s health and well being.
[00:39:55] Kim Scott: In fact, there was one point when I, my days were just chock a block with meetings. And so I put think time, I blocked these hour and a half long chunks of time so I could get into a flow state. And people kept writing over them, you know, and I finally went to my assistant. I said, this think time, this is my meeting with God. Nobody interrupts, nobody.
[00:40:19] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I love it.
[00:40:20] Kim Scott: And that was very helpful way to think about that time alone is precious.
[00:40:25] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah, I agree.
[00:40:26] Kim Scott: And you also need to block it.
[00:40:29] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: If you don’t respect your calendar, how do you expect anyone else to respect it?
[00:40:33] Kim Scott: Exactly.
[00:40:33] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah. No, I do the same thing, Kim. I, if you looked at my calendar, which I would never let you look at because it’s so embarrassing.
[00:40:39] Kim Scott: Mine too.
[00:40:40] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: I schedule the most, the weirdest things. I schedule, think about this. I schedule, I mean, I’m just like all over the place.
[00:40:47] Kim Scott: Yeah. ‘Cause otherwise you wake up at three in the morning thinking about it and that’s no good.
[00:40:52] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: You know, I feel so at peace. Like once I schedule it, like I just, it’s off my mind.
[00:40:59] Kim Scott: Yes, yes, and then my problem is that I’m a little bit of the imp of the perverse. So sometimes if I schedule think about this, I’m like, I’m not going to think about that. Uh, but that gives me, uh, that gives me something to rebel against, which is also important for a rebel.
[00:41:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Okay.
[00:41:16] Amy Sandler: It is. Well, before we close, Steven, being a mindful a steward of your time here, you talked about this idea of leadership signals, which I love. And what tip might you have for someone who is going into a meeting with their manager. Whether you’re an individual contributor or whether you’re a manager who’s got, you know, your own boss, like, what’s that mindset frame that would be helpful for folks?
[00:41:38] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Good. Um, so I definitely, I have a whole chapter around that and we collected data, um, about looking at the key things directs need to do to make these work. And the chapter is basically kind of titled, it takes two to tango. And so while the manager’s facilitating and orchestrating, the direct does need to do some. Um, and so a few of the key things, if I had to boil it down.
[00:42:02] One is, one is you can’t get what you want unless you know what you want.
[00:42:10] Kim Scott: Truth.
[00:42:11] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: That is such a common mistake, right? We go into these engagements and then we complain about it afterwards. But we’re not setting the person up for success unless we actually have thought about this is what I actually need. So that’s the first key thing. What do you actually need from this meeting and lead with that? So you can get it.
[00:42:32] Second is that you have to feel comfortable asking for help. You know, you just have to kind of engage and be willing to ask for help and support. Um, so that, that level of, um, involvement is another really critical piece.
[00:42:49] And then number three. And this is maybe a good way to wrap things up too. You know, managers are not going to be good at this because humans are not good at this. Humans are not good at really taking a genuine interest in others. We’re good about talking about ourselves, we’re good at solving problems.
[00:43:12] But in terms of truly one hundred percent focus on someone else, we’re not trained and socialized that way, it takes work. It takes work. And directs need to understand and appreciate that. That this is a challenging position for a manager. And when that manager says to you, how can I help and support you? You want to reinforce that.
[00:43:33] You want to say, thank you so much. That really means a lot to me. And ultimately by having this reinforcement, by having this patience, you’re going to train the manager as well. And that manager will be more in sync and more comfortable with this role of simply, of helping elevate others. And I think that’s a really important takeaway. And let’s be patient as that manager goes through her or his journey of great empathy and relationship building.
[00:44:03] Kim Scott: I love that. The manager is following, the direct report is leading. That’s part of the tango, right? Is you’re swapping off who’s leading and who’s following.
[00:44:13] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah, love it.
[00:44:13] Amy Sandler: All right. Well, I am so glad we met Steven. Uh, how can folks find you and get a copy of your book?
[00:44:22] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Um, probably, I mean, definitely come to my website. Um, so my website is StevenRogelberg.com. Um, StevenRogelberg.com. And I really, really tried to make it into a resource center. There’s so much on there, um, to help folks, I think, on their one on one and meetings journey.
[00:44:38] Um, the, obviously, check out the book, um, buy the book. The cool thing is, I’m not making a penny off it. Every single dime in my royalties is being donated to the American Cancer Society. So buy the book if you want to learn about one on ones, or buy the book if you’re interested in helping eradicate cancer.
[00:44:57] And so go to the website, you know, get the resources, buy the book, um, feel free to send me an email. I’m always happy to answer questions around the topic.
[00:45:06] Amy Sandler: Thank you so much. And that is S T E V E N R O G E L B E R G. You want to check out his website. And by the way, I will vouch. There was a lot of great stuff on the website. Um, and I love what you’re doing to eradicate cancer as well. We are grateful. Um, Kim, any last words?
[00:45:24] Kim Scott: Just thank you. Uh, I love everything you said about one on one meetings. It is, that, that is the most important thing. Most important meeting you have with each of your direct reports each week is your one on one meeting.
[00:45:36] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Yeah. The alternative, uh, title I considered, it wasn’t my idea. This actually came from Adam Grant. Um, where, the alternative title for the book was The One Meeting That Should Never Be an Email.
[00:45:49] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:45:50] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: And I really liked it. Um, it didn’t test all that well because it didn’t fit my brand, which is more, I’m more of a positive approach to meetings.
[00:45:58] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:45:59] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: But that title really captures the whole essence of it. This is one, this is one that we have to have.
[00:46:05] Amy Sandler: You can’t email your relationship, Tim.
[00:46:07] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: You cannot email your relationship. Love that. That’s another good alternative title.
[00:46:14] Amy Sandler: Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:46:16] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: My pleasure.
[00:46:17] Kim Scott: Thank you.
[00:46:17] Dr. Steven Rogelberg: Take care, everyone.
[00:46:18] Kim Scott: Be well.
[00:46:19] Amy Sandler: Bye bye. Thank you.
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