8 Questions for 1:1 Progress Checks

Are you currently in a management role with direct reports?

Do you have regular one-to-one meetings with each of them?

Working in this field for more than 30 years, probably the most effective habit I have seen for leaders to develop and retain employees is having regular 1:1 meetings.

The benefits of these meetings are pretty obvious: You get to really know and understand the other person, and they get a good sense about you. By listening you make them feel heard and appreciated and valued. You develop long-lasting trust. You understand their skills which lets you give them assignments that will help them shine and develop their careers. You see their rough spots and can offer advice and opportunities for them to address and polish those. Long-term, you get to help the person advance and do even bigger, better things in their career.

Just remember, a 1:1 meeting is about them, not you.

You can have other meetings to assign work, delegate tasks and responsibilities, and discuss progress. Those are topic-specific meetings about the work.

A 1:1 meeting is really a check-in on the employment relationship: “How are you doing?”

This week, I will give you eight questions to ask employees in 1:1 check-in meetings. Next week, I will cover twelve questions for monthly 1:1 development meetings.

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Weekly 1:1 Check-in Meetings

Weekly 1:1 meetings to check in on the employee’s assignments are very helpful. In those meetings, consider asking questions like these:

• “What are some ‘wins’ over the past week?” - Set the meeting off on a good tone by finding a few things that went well for the person. These can be personal. They don’t have to be work wins. This helps you understand what’s going on with them.
• “What were your goals for the past week?” - Asking this sets an expectation that the employee will recap what they were supposed to do. This gets you and them thinking in terms of results, which is a key mindset.
• “What did you accomplish?” - This is the progress check.
• “What barriers or roadblocks did you encounter?” - When things don’t get done, the employee can often point to a cause. Getting those out on the table in a collaborative way relieves some of their worry because they know you want to help them succeed.
• “What can I do to help you with these?” - Sometimes, they handled the challenges and don’t need any help. Other times, the goal remains unachieved and they need help to close the gap and reach it.
• “What did you learn that will help you in the future?” - This is a development question that you can use in a regular check-in 1:1 meeting. Asking this reminds the employee that you expect them to keep learning and growing on the job, picking up knowledge, skills, and lessons learned to help them improve.
• “What are your goals for this coming week?” - Then you turn the conversation to the coming period with the expectation that the person can set goals for themself. This increases their confidence and ability to engage over time. Plus, they are often closer to the work and may have a better sense for what the goals should be than you might as the manager!
• “What support would you like from me to get those done?” - Always offer, rather than tell. If the person is new, they may not know what help they will need. In this case, you provide more structure and detailed instructions. If the person is already performing well, they may need very little from you at all.

Did you see from this setup that you are mostly asking questions? This is intentional. Because the meeting is about them, you need to let them talk while you listen. You may be an expert in exactly what the employee does, but the goal is to help them succeed.

This will happen best by having the employee be the focus of the 1:1. Give them the space to think and talk about their work. Keep your advice to a minimum and support them.

Next week, I will offer some questions to ask for 1:1 development conversations. You can request more information from me here. Until then, keep your conversations clean and keep doing great things!

Cheers,
–Steve

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