{"id":500,"date":"2017-12-01T00:54:29","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T00:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielvlopes238992071.wordpress.com\/2017\/12\/01\/how-to-have-an-honest-one-on-one-meeting-with-an-employee\/"},"modified":"2024-10-11T10:45:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T17:45:31","slug":"how-to-have-an-honest-one-on-one-meeting-with-an-employee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2017\/12\/01\/how-to-have-an-honest-one-on-one-meeting-with-an-employee\/","title":{"rendered":"How to have an honest one-on-one meeting with an employee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Here are six ways to get employees talking about what they really feel (and not what they think you want to hear)\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cI can handle the truth. I\u2019m pretty tough, Claire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

My CEO at the time told me this during our\u00a0one-on-one<\/a>\u00a0about five or so years ago.\u00a0The year was ending, and he wanted to know what the company could do to improve, how he could improve as a leader \u2014 and he wanted to know the\u00a0truth<\/em>\u00a0of what I actually thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet despite him saying he could \u201chandle the truth,\u201d I couldn\u2019t bring myself to tell it to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truth was, I wasn\u2019t confident in the company\u2019s overall direction. And I was troubled when I learned a few employees felt they were treated unfairly in the company\u2026 But it felt futile to mention these things. I couldn\u2019t imagine that our CEO would take my feedback to heart and change anything in the company. If anything, I could more easily imagine that I\u2019d provoke a negative reaction from him. Telling him the truth just didn\u2019t seem worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll never forget that feeling of holding something back \u2014\u00a0choosing not to vocalize what I was thinking\u00a0because I felt nothing in the company would change.\u00a0To be clear: I\u2019m not proud of my silence. Now\u00a0knowing\u00a0what I know about\u00a0giving feedback to a manager<\/a>, I wish I\u2019d spoken up.\u00a0Today as a CEO myself, I can only imagine how utterly frustrating it was for him to have that one-on-one with me\u2026 and then a few months later learn that I was leaving the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having experienced this, I\u2019ve thought deeply\u00a0about\u00a0the one-on-ones I do with my own team here at\u00a0Canopy<\/a>. I never want a teammate of mine to feel how I once did on the other side of the table. And I don\u2019t want to be like my former boss, blindsided by how an employee is\u00a0actually<\/em>\u00a0feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To encourage honest responses during a\u00a0one-on-one<\/a>\u00a0with an employee, here\u2019s what I keep in mind\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make empathy your <\/strong>mission<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every time I have a one-on-one, I have a single mission: to understand how the other person is feeling. Everything else comes second. I don\u2019t use the time to focus on critiquing an employee\u2019s performance, nor do I use the time to get a status update on a project (those are separate, secondary conversations). A one-on-one is invaluable, sacred time to uncover the truth of how an employee is actually<\/em> feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you make empathy your mission, the entire landscape of the conversation changes. You start listening more. You start asking more thoughtful questions. You start to level with employees, admitting you don\u2019t have all the answers. Employees notice when an effort is being made to empathize with them, rather than pass judgment or get your own message across. The one-on-one becomes less intimidating to an employee. And when an employee is less intimidated, they\u2019ll be more honest with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll oftentimes make my mission of empathy clear upfront during a one-on-one to further diffuse any sentiment of intimidation. For example, I\u2019ll say: \u201c<\/em>Today is for me to listen and truly understand where you\u2019re feeling on things \u2013 that\u2019s it. <\/em>This isn\u2019t a performance review or status report. <\/em>This conversation is for me to understand what I can be doing to make this the best place you\u2019ve ever worked.<\/em>\u201d<\/em>When you explicitly let your employees know that empathy is your mission, you give them consent to tell you something that they might not have told you otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask questions to uncover two things: tension and energy.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To get to the bottom of how someone is feeling \u2014 particularly the negative stuff \u2014 I\u2019ll ask questions around specific moments of tension<\/strong>, and specific moments of energy<\/strong>. Specific moments of tension are situations when someone felt angry, frustrated, bored in, etc. Specific moments of energy are situations when someone felt uplifted, excited, and motivated. You want to uncover what these situations have been so you understand how to create more positive situations for an employee that gives them energy, and how to avoid and resolve the negative ones that create tension for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you ask someone about specific moments when they felt disappointed, confused, proud, etc. at work, they can reference their emotions to something real<\/em> that happened, not something ephemeral or imagined. For example, ask the question, \u201cHow\u2019s it going?\u201d and nine times out of ten your employee is going to say, \u201cThings are fine\u201d or some other vague, over-generalized response. You\u2019re never going to hear the real stuff. Versus, if you were to ask: \u201cWhen have you felt frustrated in the past year?\u201d you\u2019re asking an employee about a specific moment, situation, and emotion. You\u2019re forcing them to think in more literal, concrete terms, and giving them permission to talk about how they feel<\/em> about working at your company (something that doesn\u2019t always happen all too often in the workplace).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some examples of questions you can ask an employee around specific moments of tension so you know what to avoid:<\/p>\n\n\n\n