6 Tips to Prepare for a 1:1 Meeting With Your Boss

every 3 to 6 months you will have a one-on-one meeting with your boss the purpose of this one-on-one meeting is twofold first it's for your boss to understand how you are performing and to find out what a great employee you are and second it's a way for you to have an uninterrupted conversation with them so you can ask questions and talk through work rated problems on a higher level as a professional it's critical that you have this one-on-one time with your boss so you can find out what is working and what is not not working but in order to make the most out of it you need to approach it proactively which means you need to put in some time to prepare and plan for this one-on-one meeting and in this video I'm going to share with you six steps to help you do exactly that first you need to get to know the meeting agenda if your boss is organized they will have sent you a meeting agenda for the one-on-one meeting either in the calendar invite or by email either way before the one-onone meeting meeting you need to make sure that you read this agenda so a couple of days before the meeting spend 5 to 10 minutes reading the meeting agenda get to know what you will be talking about in the one-on-one meeting and if you don't understand something that is included in the meeting agenda I want you to mark it you don't necessarily have to ask your boss about it before the meeting but Mark it so you know that it's something that you want clarification of during that one-on-one meeting in preparing the agenda genda some managers will ask you for topics that you want to discuss this is something I actually recommend managers to do when they are preparing for one-on-one meetings with their employees because at the end of the day it's a two-way conversation between the manager and the team member or the leader and the team member and you really need to get a lot out of this one-on-one meeting as well not just your boss if your manager has asked you for topics that you would like to discuss and they've probably included this in the meeting agenda now when you read the meeting agenda make sure that you take note of when each topic will be discussed so that you don't avoid bringing up a topic too soon or asking a question too soon and derail the rest of the meeting second I recommend that you review your notes from the previous one-on-one meeting look at the action items that you were responsible for look at the accountabilities that you needed to achieve or the goals that you needed to achieve did you achieve them if you did fantastic if you didn't try to think of why you didn't achieve them what came in the way of you achieving those goals because these are areas that your boss will definitely ask you about if you did complete an action item or a meet a goal from the previous meeting then make sure you highlighted in the current one-on-one meeting that you're having talk about it as an achievement or a success that you have had make sure your boss knows about it because they may have forgotten that it ever happened and also get their feedback on your performance in achieving this task and meeting this goal because this helps to reinforce your value as an employee in their mind as well if you didn't complete an action item or if you didn't meet a goal that you had set in the previous one-on-one meeting then try to think about why that happened why didn't you meet that goal what obstacle got in your way was it a short time frame that led you to not complete the task on time was a lack of skills that caused you to not have the skill set needed to complete the task successfully was it lack of resources that led you to not complete that task and talk about what you will do to rectify this meaning what will you do differently next time in order to complete that task successfully you need to think of your one-on-one meeting with your boss as a rolling meeting something that continues from the previous meeting to the current one and then to the next one and if you think of a topic that you talked about in the previous one-on-one meeting that you would like to discuss again again in this meeting a follow on topic make sure you include it in the list of items that you would like to discuss this list can include action items following on from the previous one-on-one meeting or it can include new items that have Arisen since the previous meeting for example updates on projects that you are working on ideas that you want to present questions you want to ask challenges you want to talk about and accomplishments you want your boss to know about just so you know we will be expanding on these last two points later on in this video essentially this is your grand list of items that you want to discuss in your one-on-one meeting simply by making this list you put thought into the one-on-one meeting which helps you get the most out of it and it also makes you look proactive because your boss knows that you are coming prepared at this point in your one-on-one meeting preparation I recommend that you start to record these things in a Google doc or some other kind of word processing software because as you will Discover at the end of this video you need to keep smart notes as to what you want to talk about in your one-on-one meeting in the last point I talked about including problems and challenges as a discussion point for the one-on-one meeting so let's expand on that now since your last one-on-one meeting it's likely that you've come across a number of obstacles or problems along the way they could be large or small they could be tasks specific they could be related to your work they could be related to workplace interactions with your co-workers or they could be something else given how varied your workday is and given how much time has lapsed since your previous one-on-one meeting with your boss it's likely that there is at least one challenge or problem that has arisen that you would like to discuss difficulty comes when you don't record problems as they arise Because by the time the one-on-one meeting comes around you might have forgotten what that problem was or you may have already solved it and then you think it's not really important anymore to discuss in the meeting because it's already been solved therefore for either of of those situations you don't include that problem in as a discussion point in the one-on-one meeting but this is a mistake no matter how small or large the problems are no matter if they are solved or not solved it's important that you talk to your boss about them they need to know the challenges that you personally face at work so they can reestablish expectations of you they also need to be made aware of all problems that happen in a team so they can work on overcoming them and preventing them from happening in the future they also need to know if you have solved that problem on your own because this will Elevate the expectations that they have of you so it's really important for all of these reasons that you identify the problems and challenges that you face or that you have faced since the last one-on-one meeting and that you tell your boss about them and don't forget to think of solutions to these problems and challenges so if it's a problem or challenge that you have not solved yet try to think of a possible solution to that problem it doesn't have to be the right solution it doesn't have to be a fantastic solution but it does show your boss that you've been proactive and you've already started to think about a possible solution to that problem you face bosses love to see employees do this because it shows that they are independent thinkers and they're not waiting around relying on their boss to solve all of their problems for them you also want to include as a discussion Point all of your highlights successes and achievements that you've had since the last last one-on-one meeting this isn't about you bragging how wonderful you are it's about helping your boss see the value that you bring to the team and to the company because it's this value that is the deciding factor in future projects that you get assigned future promotions and future pay Rises too essentially what you need to create is a highlight reel this is a running document of things you have achieved since your last one-on-one meeting this is something you can save in Google Docs or another word processing software and you should add to it regularly as you have achieved something or had a success at work it can include highlights about projects you have worked on challenges you've overcome or your interpersonal interactions with others at work so for all of these things think about where did you Excel how did you add value what experience did you gain and write out a detailed list of each notable achievement and in include it in your highlight reel your highlight reel is also a great resource to look at on days when you are feeling a little bit discouraged or when you're feeling a lack of confidence at work once you've done all of this research and thinking then you need to compile your notes on a document that you take into the one-on-one meeting this document could be a simple spreadsheet a Word document or a table like what you see on the screen personally I like the table option for the meeting because it helps me see all of the different talking points points that I want to include in the meeting on the top left I have discussion items this is where I'd write in items that I want to discuss during the meeting and this is what we talked about in point three of this video so skip back to that section if you need a reminder of what we talked about on the top right I have problems and solutions this is where I would write in problems I have faced since the last one-on-one meeting and possible solutions that I have come up with for those problems we talked about this in point 4 of this video on the lower left I have highlights this is where I include achievements and successes that I want to talk about we talked about this in point five of the video on the lower right I have action items we haven't actually talked about action items in this video but it's pretty self-explanatory basically it's a place where you can record action items that you must attend to once the one-on-one meeting is finished this table is very simple you can copy this design and make up your own document in Google Docs now if you are having a one-on-one meeting for a performance review while different rules apply you will need to know what to say in a performance review meeting and you will need to know what questions to ask your manager in a performance review meeting these two videos up here will help you with those two things thank you so much for watching this video I hope you got a lot of valuable content from it if you did like it please hit the like button below subscribe to my channel for more content like this every week to help you as an emerging leader thank you again for watching and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Kara Ronin

Views: 12,209

Keywords: 1:1 meetings with your boss, One to one meeting with your boss, How to prepare for a one to one meeting with your boss, One to one meeting with manager, Productive one to one meetings with your boss, One to one with manager, Effective one to one meetings, One to one discussion at work, One on one meeting agenda, Meeting agenda for one to one with boss, 6 Tips to Prepare for a 1:1 Meeting With Your Boss, Prepare for a one on one meeting with your manager

Id: NgI2WWgnngI

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2024