Status Update
Level 1. Scores 0 to 25. Status meetings with a nicer name.
Your one on ones are status meetings with a nicer name. That is not a character flaw. It is what happens when a busy leader runs the meeting the only way the calendar allows: you ask what is going on, they tell you, you react, time is up.
The cost is quiet. Your reports are giving you information you could have read in two minutes, and you are spending the one slot a fortnight where they have you alone on it. The things you actually need to hear, the doubt about a colleague, the offer they are weighing, the decision they think you got wrong, do not get said in a status meeting. Nobody volunteers those between "how is the launch" and "anything else".
Two of your four dimensions are almost certainly the problem. If Ownership is your lowest score, the meeting is yours and it should be theirs. If Cadence is your lowest score, the meeting keeps moving and your report has learned not to prepare for it. Look at the dimension bars above before you do anything else.
A VP I worked with had this exact pattern. Every one on one opened with the same question, where are we on the project, and every one ran out of time on the answer. He thought his team did not have much to say. That was not the problem. The meeting told them what it was for in its first sentence.
The fix was one sentence, said at the start of every meeting: this is your time, what do you want to use it for. Then he stopped talking. Status moved to the weekly team meeting, where it belonged. Within a month, one of his reports used the slot to tell him she was thinking about leaving, and why. A status meeting never hears that conversation.
What to do this week: read your template below. It has two blocks you would not have chosen for yourself: a "protect the slot" rule and three prompts that hand the first ten minutes to your report. Use the prompts on Monday with one person. Do not announce a new system. Just ask the first question and stay quiet longer than feels comfortable.
Do not try to fix all four dimensions at once. Status Update leaders who try to run a perfect one on one next week usually go back to status updates by the third week. One block, one person, one month.
Next step: the one on one meeting questions page sorts its questions by what you are trying to learn. Pick three.
Your 1:1 template
Every template starts with the same three blocks:
- Header block: name, cadence, slot, and the line that this is their meeting.
- The base agenda in the 40 / 40 / 20 split: their items, your items, the next step.
- The closing two lines: one action each, date of the next meeting.
Then one block for each dimension that scored 50 or below. Open this page from the link the tool gave you and the blocks that apply to you are marked; without scores, treat every block as optional and keep the one that matches your lowest bar.
- Cadence
Cadence block: a protect the slot rule, a four week cadence table, and the rule for what happens when the leader must move it (the report picks the new time, within the same week). - Ownership
Ownership block: three opening prompts for the report (What is on your mind, What is in your way, What do you need from me), and a one line rule that the leader speaks second. - Depth
Depth block: the energy question, one pushback prompt (Tell me where I have this wrong), and a line on the three pushback patterns the leader may meet. - Follow-through
Follow-through block: an action log with owner and date, and a last time we said opener.
Next step
The other results
- Check InWarm, well liked, and nothing changes between meetings.
- Working SessionThings get decided. Nobody hears where they stand.
- CalibrationThe one on one most leaders describe and few run.
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the 1:1 Meeting Builder and Score, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.