#68: Master the Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings with Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg

Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist, holds the title of Chancellors Professor at UNC Charlotte for distinguished national, international and interdisciplinary contributions. He is an award-winning teacher, has over 200 publications, been cited well-over 10,000 times in the academic literature, and was recipient of the very prestigious Humboldt Award for his research on meetings. Adam Grant has called Steven the world’s leading expert on how to fix meetings.

Dr. Rogelberg's previous book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance (Oxford) has been on over 25 best of lists including being recognized by the Washington Post as the #1 leadership book to watch for, His new book, Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings came out in January and is already receiving tremendous praise including a SHRM Top 12 Workplace books recognition. He was the inaugural winner of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Humanitarian Award and just finished his term as President of SIOP, the largest professional organization in the world for organizational psychology.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Make the time. 1:1 meetings are too often an afterthought. This is a miss since these meetings offer a unique opportunity to boost employee performance and commitment while helping the manager exercise their personal values.
2. Open the door. While the manager should own the meeting cadence, the direct report should be allowed to own the meeting agenda. You can get a status update whenever you like, but the 1:1 offers a unique opportunity for a direct report to have their needs met.
3. Get it in writing. When you document your discussion notes and action items, you’re doing more than practicing good meeting hygiene. You’re demonstrating to your direct report that you sincerely care about their perspective and welfare.

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From the Source

“As an organizational psychologist, I'm just drawn to study pain at work and try to identify science that can help rectify it. And clearly, meetings are a fabulous target when it comes to pain.”

“When I'm talking about a one on one meeting, what I'm talking about is a regular recurring meeting between a manager and their directs that's orchestrated and facilitated by the manager, but it's not for them. It's for their directs.”

“When you do these right, employees are more engaged. They're more successful. They're more aligned. They thrive more. They're good for you! They're really good for managers because when their people are successful, that's a direct reflection on the manager.”

“It often comes from these that the manager says, ‘okay, I'll do X, Y, and Z.’ And the employee says, ‘I'll do X, Y, and Z.’ And then there's just clarity around that handshake of sorts of commitments. And then ideally you take notes, because you want to capture the conversation, but also note taking is a really great signal. When an employee sees you taking notes physically with your hand on a piece of paper, they think that you really cared about that conversation.”

Connect with Steven

Glad We Met (book): https://www.amazon.com/Glad-We-Met-Science-Meetings/dp/0197641873/

Website: http://www.stevenrogelberg.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rogelberg