One-on-one planner
A status update and a real conversation ask the same four questions, whether you’re the manager or the direct report. Set your expectation, think ahead for success, and leave with a plan.
The exercise
What do you actually want out of this conversation?
Not the topic, the outcome. “Update on the Miller account” is a topic. Knowing whether to keep pushing the timeline or let it slip is an outcome.
What’s changed since you last talked?
One or two lines. Open loops, anything that moved, anything that stalled. Keeps the conversation from starting cold.
What decision needs to get made, and who’s making it?
This is the one people skip, and the one that matters most. Put a name in “who decides,” even if the honest answer is you, after this conversation.
What’s the next concrete step, and by when?
Not “keep an eye on it.” An action, a date, an owner.
Something you’ve been putting off saying Optional
Easy to let slide when you’re the one setting the agenda. Worth asking yourself anyway.
An agenda for your next one-on-one, with a decision owner and a date attached instead of a general sense that something was discussed.
“A shared feeling that something was discussed isn’t the same as a decision.”
If this helped, that’s worth a conversation.
This is one of nine. If today’s exercise was useful, thirty minutes will tell us whether coaching would be too.