"Nobody really teaches you how to run a one-on-one meeting. So you default to status updates - and the conversation never quite goes anywhere."

If that's where you're at, you're in good company. It's not a you problem - it's a tools problem.

  • Roll. Reset. Walk in ready.

    A small cube for your desk with leadership behaviours on its sides. Pick it up before your next one-on-one, and see if you've got something to anchor the next thirty minutes around. Five seconds of intention beats fifteen minutes of prep.

  • Small moves. Big difference.

    A pocket-sized book of immediately-doable actions that build trust and motivate team members. Read one on the way to your one-on-one. Try it. See what shifts. It's the small, repeated behaviours that compound, not the big interventions.

  • A conversation starting point.

    Hand each person a card on Monday — one small action to bring to the team that week. By the one-on-one meeting, you've got a real conversation starter: what shifted, what did they notice. Turns "all good!" one-on-one's into meetings where something can surface.

Tools for better one-on-one meetings

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"I love the cube. I keep it on my desk and its great to handle when I'm thinking though something. It's finite, but it seems to have endless possibilities."

— CEO, small business

Five questions to ask in your one-on-one meeting

(that aren't: "What are you working on?")

Send it to me