The Ultimate One-on-One Meeting Templates

Emotional state

Discuss how the time between this meeting and your last one has been. What has excited, frustrated, engaged, or bored you (and the other meeting participants)? 

Relationships

Explore the most recent state of each other’s team relationships. What is your team struggling with? Where are they finding success?

Goals

Review your short and long-term goals. How are you progressing towards them? What short-term goals or interim milestones on long-term goals have you reached?

Feedback & Support

Check in to see how/if you can support the other meeting participants. How can we work together more effectively? How can I support you better?

Open Discussion & Wrap Up

Open discussion. Then, list and assign action items and schedule the next meeting.

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Check-In

How are both of you feeling at work? Anything new? Anything exciting planned? Take some time to catch up with each other. ‍

Roadblocks & Concerns

Have any issues or challenges come up since the last one-on-one? How can we help?‍

Recognize Wins

What have we accomplished since our last meeting? What valuable lessons were learned?‍

Update on Objectives

What are the most important things we'll focus on going forward? Are there any new objectives? How do these fit into the short-term and long-term goals?‍

Action Items

What steps must be taken to make progress on our goals? List them here as well as who is responsible for what. Set clear expectations and timelines.‍

Revisit Later

What was mentioned that should be noted and deferred? Is there anything either party would like to discuss during the next one-on-one?‍

Feedback

Is there any other noteworthy feedback? How can we help each other be more successful?‍

Follow-Up

How will we keep in touch and stay up-to-date about progress? Should we schedule another one-on-one?

Kick-off the meeting

Ask your team member about the highlight of their week (this doesn't need to be restricted to work; anything will do)

Read your team member's prepared update in silence 

Have your teammate create an update prior to the meeting. The update should: 

1. Center around their OKRs for the month/quarter/year. Split into 'what went well', and 'what could improve' sections around each objective
2. Track progress towards their KPI's
3. Summary of any pertinent information about how their goals have gone. e.g. What new information did you gather about the customer? The product?

Go through your team member's issues (and proposed solutions)

Try to keep to a few minutes for each issue and not get bogged down in minutiae. For clear asks, give an immediate response or create a follow-up task. Otherwise, we recommend helping people come to their own conclusions, it'll foster a sense of healthy independence.

Cover any open-ended discussions (time for blue-sky thinking)

Prompt your report to create topics prior to the meeting.

Ask, "what are your three most important things to get done by this time next week/month"

Preferably whatever they come up with should be related to their OKR's. Jot down the three tasks in your project management system, set the owner, and the due date for the next one-on-one. 

Feedback

Be extremely candid and clear with your critical feedback, leave no room for interpretation. Make sure to give both positive and negative feedback. 

High-five

This seals any commitments and parts of the meeting with a good note. 

The Upcoming Week

Set expectations and align on near-term priorities for the week ahead.

Review Priorities

Where are we in relation to our goals/plan? Reiterate top priorities to reinforce focus.

Comment on Recent Work

Review recent successes or failures to guide future work.

Status Update and Course Correction

How is x, y, and/or z task going? Offer guidance on work in progress.

New Information

Review new, relevant information.

Follow-Up

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Objective(s)

Outline the objectives of the session.

Review

Review actions and learning from or since the last session (if applicable).

Questions or Issues

What questions or issues keep coming up? Figure out what to do to avoid—or mitigate the impact of—persistent issues.

Future Planning

What do you need to do to continue growing and discovering? i.e. developing skills, changing your approach, etc.

Mentor/Mentee Feedback 

What can we do to make these sessions more valuable? Provide feedback both ways, mentee to mentor and mentor to mentee. 

Follow-Up

When is our next one-on-one check-in? Summarize any action items arising from the one-on-one.

Big Picture

Where do you see your career going in the short/long-term? ‍

Career Growth — Organizational Mandates Alignment 

Where do the organization’s mandates most closely align with your career goals? Discuss how [the direct report’s] job function fits into organizational goals.

Goal-Setting Part 1 - Aspirational

Brainstorm measurable, meaningful short and long-term career goals

Goal-Setting Part 2 - Actionable

Brainstorm measurable, meaningful short and long-term goals to create stepping stones towards achieving specific organizational mandates.

Follow-Up

Do we need solo time to build on this? Should we review our goals again? When will we connect again to measure progress? 

Opener Question

Start with an open-ended question. What has got you excited at work? 

Note Progress & Highlight Wins 

How is _____ going? Discuss long-term initiatives. 

Tell me about some recent successes? (AND/OR) What projects have we wrapped up successfully recently? Highlight shorter term wins. 

Review Lessons Learned

What have you learned over the past 1 - 3 months? Highlight learnings.

Overcome Persistent Obstacles

What is slowing you down, making your job less enjoyable, or preventing you from achieving your career goals? How can we fix that? 

Plan to remove specific roadblocks and create action items.

Open Evaluation and Feedback

How can we improve our working relationship? What could I (the manager) do better?

Open Floor

Open discussion. What’s been keeping you up at night? What do you want more of?

Follow-Up

Wrap up and follow up. When’s our next one-on-one?

Action items:

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Intro question

Start with an open-ended question. How was last week? What’s been working well for you lately? 

Celebrate Wins & Lessons Learned

What have we accomplished since our last meeting? Note progress on important initiatives.

How can we be better? Highlight lessons learned from the previous week.

Remove Roadblocks

What (if anything) is stopping—or slowing down—your progress? How can we remove that roadblock? What support do you need? 

Plan to remove specific roadblocks and create action items.

Two-Way Evaluation and Feedback

How are we doing? How can we work together more effectively? 

Open Discussion

Provide time for open discussion. Is there anything else you want to talk about? 

Follow-Up

Should we schedule another one-on-one? Review any action items arising from the one-on-one.

Action items:

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Warm up

Start with a light, open-ended question. What’s been keeping you busy?

Highlight Achievements

What milestones have we hit since our last check-in? Note progress on important initiatives and emphasize takeaways.

Problem Solving

What’s stopping you from being more productive? How can management help you be more productive? 

Plan to remove specific inefficiencies or roadblocks. Create action items.

Two-Way Evaluation and Feedback

What are we doing well? What can we do better? Discuss ways to create value for manager, employee, and the organization.

Open Discussion

Provide space for open discussion. What’s got you excited? Worried? Annoyed?

Follow-Up

When is our next one-on-one check-in? Summarize any action items arising from the one-on-one.

Action items:

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‍Attendees

A skip one-on-one meeting is a meeting with managers or senior leaders in the company with those who are in junior positions. It is important not to have the meeting with a direct report in order to get honest and accurate feedback. To be truly effective you must create an environment in which the employee feels comfortable. Ideally, the manager should have a relationship with the individual being interviewed. Remember these sessions are about listening and learning from different perspectives in the organizations. 

‍Preparation‍

Managers should come armed with questions about the business based on data they’ve reviewed in advance — both qualitative and quantitative. 

Here are some questions you might want to ask in your one-on-ones:  

• What is the morale in the office from their point of view?
• How they are feeling about his or her team?
• What their manager is doing well and not well?
• What obstacles are they facing in their job? (If you are their skip-level manager, take steps to unblock these obstacles — it will mean a lot to the person that you took action.)
• Do you understand the company’s goals and how your team’s goals fit into that picture?
• Do you feel like you can do things you believe are right for the business?
• Do you think leadership acts consistently with your values?
• What would make work better for you?
• When was the last time you took a vacation?
• What is your sacred space? Do you feel like you have time for it?

Open Forum

• Ask the interviewee if there is anything that was not covered above that they would like to add?