Jason Evanish, Founder of GetLighthouse.com

One-on-Ones: Your secret weapon to high performing teams

February 2015

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Jason Evanish – GetLighthouse.com - @Evanish Jason is the founder of Get Lighthouse. He previously ran product at KISSmetrics, and co-founded the site Greenhorn Connect, a hub for startup events and resources in the Boston tech community. Jason has been quoted in Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR. He is a regular speaker on topics of customer development & product management and is now applying those skills to help managers succeed with Lighthouse. You can read more of his learnings on his blogs at JasonEvanish.com and GetLighthouse.com/Blog

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1 Why are one-on-ones important?

2 What makes a good one-on-one?

3 How can you have consistently, great one-on-ones?

Everything you need to know about one-on-ones

4 Why is my excuse not a good one?

5 Where can you learn more?

“…if Tim doesn’t meet with each one of his employees in the next

24 hours, I will have no choice but to fire him and fire you. Are

we clear?”

-  Ben Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Why are One-on-Ones so important?

“Perhaps the CEO’s most important operational responsibility is designing and implementing the communication architecture for her company. Absent a well-designed communication architecture, information and ideas will stagnate and your company will degenerate into a bad place to work.” — Ben Horowitz, investor at A16Z & former CEO of

Opsware

“…one-on-ones provide an excellent mechanism for information and ideas to flow up the organization

and should be part of your design.”

— Ben Horowitz, investor at A16Z and former CEO of Opsware

What if you’re not the CEO?

“As a middle manager, you are in effect a chief executive of

an organization yourself.

…As a micro CEO, you can improve your own and your

group’s performance and productivity, whether or not

the rest of the company follows suit.”

— Andy Grove, former CEO & Co-Founder of Intel

“Ninety minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate’s work for two

weeks, or for some eighty-plus hours.”

-  Andy Grove in High Output Management

Andy and Ben are not alone.

What makes One-on-Ones

so special?

“You need to meet 1-on-1, in an unstructured way, with

all your best people.

…You won’t learn, or know, what your top people need

to find their growth path at your company. Where they

feel stalled out and frustrated.  

You have to ask.”

— Jason Lemkin, former CEO of EchoSign, partner at Storm Ventures, and blogger at SaaStr.com

But why do they all say this?

Show me the data!

1

“You can see a straight-line correlation between employee engagement and overall effectiveness of their supervisors” Source: Harvard Business Review, “How Damaging is a Bad Boss, Exactly?”

The be!er the leader, the more engaged the team.

Source: The Gallup Organization, “Employee Engagement, Satisfaction, and Business-Unit-Level Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis”

86%

Higher success rate on customer metrics

78%

Be!er Employee Retention

63%

More Productive

44%

More Profitable

103%

Be!er Injury & Sick Day Rate

Engaged employees drive results.

Source: The Gallup Organization, “State of the American Workplace 2013”

Yet…

Only

30% of employees are engaged.

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The #1 reason people leave their jobs:

Why!?!?

Management is very different than individual work.

Management is a new set of skills to master.

You o#en must do managerial + individual work.

Meetings can kill your productivity.

Good management is a long game.

The one-on-one is your best tool as a manager.

What makes a good One-on-One?

“The most important criterion governing ma!ers to be talked

about is that they be issues that preoccupy and nag the

subordinate.”

-  Andy Grove in High Output Management

How to start one-on-ones with your team

• Pick a time you can stick to consistently.

• Schedule them weekly or bi-weekly for an hour.

• Send your team member a calendar invite.

• Emphasize to your team it’s their time.

More advice for starting at: h!p://bit.ly/start1on1s

Tell your team members about them

Learn more & get a version you can copy at: h!p://bit.ly/start1on1s

Get out of

the office

sometimes.

“While it’s not the manager’s job to set the agenda or do the talking, the manager

should try to draw the key issues out of the employee.

The more introverted the employee, the more

important this becomes. If you manage engineers, drawing out issues will be an

important skill to master.”

-  Ben Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Bring good questions to ask

On Long Term Goals •  Do you feel like you’re making progress on your big goals here?

Why or why not?

On Their Improvement •  What’s a recent situation you wished you handled differently?

What would you change?

On You Improving •  What is something I could do be!er?

On Building Rapport •  What do you like to do in your free time? What are your hobbies?

Find 101 more questions at: h!p://bit.ly/1on1questions

“Equally important is what ‘writing it down’ symbolizes.

…the act implies a commitment,

like a handshake, that something will be done…having taken notes, [the manager] can then follow up

at the next one-on-one.”

— Andy Grove, former CEO & Co-Founder of Intel

Take Notes.

Make the conversation actionable

1) Discuss what you can both do by next one-on-one. 2) Create a social contract so you follow through. 3) Start the next meeting checking them off.

Learn the power of progress

The best days for people at work are the ones where they feel progress on their work and the things that are important to them.

Source: Harvard Business Review, “The Power of Small Wins”

“Of all the things that can boost inner work life, the most important is making progress in meaningful work.”

— Teresa Amabile, Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Don’t Give Up!

Warning!

The first few one-on-ones can be awkward.

Story #1: Starting one on ones

How do you have great

one-on-ones consistently?

Get to know them beyond work

• Build rapport.

• Find common bonds.

• Learn what motivates and drives them.

Create the foundation for a trusting relationship.

Story #2: The Power of Rapport

Learn more about the power of rapport at: h!p://bit.ly/RapportPower

Give them coaching & feedback

1.  It’s be!er received than a special meeting.

2.  It’s still fresh in both your minds.

3.  Get be!er context on the situation.

4.  Avoid overloading them during reviews.

5.  Fix problems while they’re small.

Story #3: A coachable moment

Talk about their long term goals

•  Don’t wait for annual reviews.

•  A plan gets them excited

•  Helps retain your team.

•  Is a strong investment in your company.

Learn more about how to talk about Goals at: h!p://bit.ly/TeamGoals

Story #4: The power of growing your people

Shop ideas and get buy-in

•  Share ideas before implementing to get

candid feedback.

•  Get their buy in on tough decisions

before company-wide announcements.

Make them feel heard & part of the process.

Story #5: Ge!ing buy-in before a big change

Review your notes before each meeting.

1.  Remember what you talked about.

2.  Avoid giving conflicting advice.

3.  Avoid their resentment.

4.  Keep your promises.

5.  Build momentum.

Don’t Cancel. Reschedule.

Learn more why you should never cancel at: h!p://bit.ly/NeverCancel

Cheat codes for the Pros

The Skip Level One-on-One

1.  Get feedback on their manager.

2.  Gain front line insights.

3.  Give them mentorship.

The Peer One-on-One

1.  Find ways to work be!er together.

2.  Share perspectives & knowledge.

3.  Build Rapport.

But…

Debunking common excuses

But… I have an open door policy!

“I’d assumed [an open door] would guarantee me a place in the loop, at

least when it came to major sources of tension.

…Not a single production manager had

dropped by to express frustration or make a suggestion in the five years we

worked on Toy Story… being on the lookout for problems was not the same

as seeing problems.”

— Ed Catmull, Co-founder & President of Pixar Animation

But… a 15 minute catch up is enough.

“The subordinate must feel that there is enough time to broach

and get into thorny issues.

I feel that a one-on-one should last an hour…anything less, tends to make the subordinate confine

himself to simple things that can be handled quickly.”

— Andy Grove, Former Co-founder & CEO of Intel

But… I get drinks with the team all the time.

“You may think you know if you have

drinks together, or go see movies together, or

whatever, that you know. But you don’t...

  You have to ask.”

— Jason Lemkin, former CEO of EchoSign, partner at Storm Ventures, and blogger at

SaaStr.com

Learn more from Jason at: h!p://bit.ly/saastrmanagement

But… I don’t have time.

“What you quickly realize as a manager is

that the single most effective way to set up a team for success in

the long run is to focus on the people.”

  — Julie Zhuo, Product Design Director at Facebook

Learn more about management from Julie at: h!p://bit.ly/jouleemanagement

But… my team doesn’t want to have them.

“A company lives or dies by:

•  Ge"ing the best people to join the company

•  Keeping them engaged & productive •  Making great decisions about what

these people should work on

A manager has only a few tools in her arsenal to do these, and 1-1’s are perhaps the most powerful.”  

— Michael Wolfe, founder of Pipewise & Vontu, angel & advisor.

Learn more from Michael on 1 on1s at: h!p://bit.ly/doineed1on1s

But… does it really ma"er?

Keys to Remember for

One-on-Ones

Many of today’s best companies have them

A checklist for great one-on-ones

! Make it their time

! 1 hour weekly or bi-weekly

! Keep a consistent schedule

! Never cancel (reschedule instead)

! Build rapport & push through awkward

! Bring good questions

! Take Notes

! Make it actionable for both of you

Further Reading

101 questions to ask in one-on-ones

Three keys to starting one-on-ones with your team

What to expect when you start having one-on-ones

21 reasons you should start one-on-ones with your team

The best of Andy Grove's High Output Management

Why you might be doing one-on-ones wrong

Questions?

Thue Madsen Marketing Operations Specialist

KISSmetrics @ThueLMadsen

tmadsen@kissmetrics.com

Jason Evanish Founder

Get Lighthouse @Evanish

Jason@GetLighthouse.com

THANK YOU

Jason Evanish Founder, GetLighthouse.com