Twenty-one Questions for Great One-on-One Meetings.

If you believe, as we do, that one-on-one meetings are still the best way to build strong working relationships with everyone on your team, you’ll want to make them a priority. Of course, when you’re distracted or struggling to shift focus from other responsibilities, it can be a challenge to get the conversation started.

Photo by Sonny Abesamis, Flickr

Socates said ““My way toward the truth is to ask the right questions.” Confuscious clearly believed in the power of good questions too, having written: “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

Make sure you’re ready to initiate dialogue during your one-on-one meetings with one or more of these useful seed questions.

  1. Tell me about what you’ve been working on?
  2. How we can be better making use of your time or attention?
  3. What questions do you have about this project?
  4. Tell me about your week – what’s it been like?
  5.  Where do you think I can be most helpful?
  6. Tell me about your family/weekend/ activities?
  7.  How are you going to approach this?
  8. Tell me about anything you stumbled over.
  9. What are your thoughts on my/our changes?
  10. Would you update me on Project X?
  11. What do you think about it?
  12. Are you on track to meet the deadline?
  13. How do you think we can do this better?
  14. What areas are ahead of schedule?
  15. What are your future goals in this area?
  16. What areas of your work are you confident about?
  17. What are your plans to get there?
  18. What worries you?
  19. What can you/we do differently next time?
  20. What suggestions do you have?
  21. Tell me about what you’ve learned on this project?

As described in our earlier post “One-on-Ones: Making them Work,” once you get the conversational ball rolling, let things flow naturally according to what’s on your team member’s mind.  If you’d like to learn more about One-on-Ones and why they are important to individuals and organizations, here are some great reads.

 

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