5 Tips for the Best One on One meetings With Your Boss

August 16, 2017 Chantel Driver

One on One Meetings With Your Boss are Your Single Most Important Work Meeting

Weekly Boss-Employee One-on-One Meetings are your number one work meeting because they create an opportunity for you to:

Get recognition for the hard work you've done,
Find out if you're making career limiting mistakes,
Grow yourself personally and professionally,
Secure your promotions, bonuses & and increases and,
Improve your relationship with your boss.

When you are having great one on ones with your boss it’s like a secret recipe for success and happiness at work. If you’re not you could find yourself in the unemployment line. But the problem is no one shows you how to have awesome one on one meetings with your boss. This article will show you the 5 Tips for the Best One on One Meetings With Your Boss

Tip: Have you thought about what a better one on one meeting process could do for your career and work happiness? The free short, online training course: One on One Meetings With Your Boss will show you how to make your one on one meetings with your boss count. (Includes a one on one meeting agenda).

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One on One Meetings With Your Boss Tip #1 Start by using an Email Invite for a One On One Meeting With Your Boss

If you’ve had a boss who did regular, high quality One on One meetings with employees then you know how important these meetings are. Because they keep everyone on track and moving forward. They ensure that priorities are aligned and they build better relationships.

But what do you do if your boss doesn’t have regular one on ones with you? You can sit back and hope for the best or you can take control of your destiny and ask. That’s why the first tip is to not miss out on one on ones by sending your boss an email invite.

Tip: If your boss doesn’t have regular one on ones with you then it’s probably just because your boss hasn’t had any manager training. I speak from personal experience because I didn’t know how to have great one on one meetings with my employees until someone showed me how.

A word of caution - you can’t tell your boss what to do. This means that you cannot insist that your boss has regular one on one meetings with you but what you can do is you can make a good case. And you can take the initiative to help it happen.

Most bosses have a lot of demands on them. They like employees who take the initiative to make things happen. The best way to get the ball rolling is to take over the administration that’s needed to make things happen.

Reference: Download the email invite for a one on one meeting with your boss to get started

One on One Meetings With Your Boss Tip #2 Don’t Come Unprepared For Your Most Important Meeting

Weekly One on Ones are your Best Communication Channel With Your Boss. They are a place to solve your problems and advance your career. But coming unprepared sends a bad signal to your boss and is going to choke your career. The key is knowing what you need to prepare.

These are the items that you need to be prepared to discuss with your boss:

Status update on what you’ve done in the last week,
Your plan for the week ahead,
Items for input from your boss
Any potential issues boiling up and,
Your growth.

Preparing for your most important meeting is one way to avoid career limiting mistakes. To find out if you are making any other career limiting mistakes, take the Career Success Checkup

That bring us to the next step….

One on One Meetings With Your Boss Tip #3 Use a Best Practice One on One Form

The key to awesome One on One Meetings With Your Boss is sticking to a tried and tested one on one meeting agenda.

The way to make sure that you go into your meetings prepared and keep things moving forward, is to stick to these 4 sections. They are:

The Employees Agenda,
The Manager's Agenda,
Deliverables for the Week Ahead and
Employee Growth and Development (as needed).

Resource: The best way to prepare and keep track of your one on ones with your boss is a Best Practice One on One Form. Get your free one on one meeting agenda here.

One on One Meetings With Your Boss Tip #4 Know the Questions to Ask Your Boss in One on One Meetings

Communication is a two way channel, your meeting with your boss isn’t just a chance to tell your boss what you’ve been up to. It’s also your opportunity to find out what you need to know from your boss. The challenge is that not every boss knows what they should tell you. Is your boss a good boss or bad boss? Find out with this boss rater.

Whether or not you have a good boss or a bad boss, make your one on one meetings with your boss work for you by asking the right questions.

One of the most important things to find out from your boss is feedback on what your boss thinks you should be doing. There’s no point in working hard on the wrong things. That’s why a good place to start is with the following questions:

What am I doing that is working and why? Do you want more of this and how?
What am I doing that needs to change? Why and how?
What am I doing that I should stop doing?

Reference: That’s a starter of questions you need to ask your boss in one on one meetings, get the full list over here.

One on One Meetings With Your Boss Tip #5 Follow Up and Keep at It

A single One on One meeting isn’t going to fix everything, the magic comes from following up and keeping up the practice.

Write things down in the meeting because your boss wants to know that they’ve been heard and that you will do what you said you would. This is what builds trust. Writing things down on your One on One form isn’t just a good way to make sure you don’t forget what you said you would do, because if things go bad, it’s also an important record.

Bonus Tip: Learn Best Practices

When I had my first one on one meeting with my boss I was nervous. I had never had a one on one before and I really didn’t know what to expect or what to prepare. Had I done something wrong? Why was I being put under the spotlight?

Now, looking back, I know that my weekly one on ones with my boss are the best thing ever. Because even if I do make a mistake it’s better to resolve it right away before it becomes a major issue.

But as I’ve said, there are good and bad ways of doing things. Whether you’ve never had a one-on-one with your boss before or if you've had hundreds, there is always something to learn. That's why I've made a short course for you. I wish I had known about this when I started out because I could've saved myself a lot of stress, a lot of time plus progressed faster in my career

One on One Meetings With Your Boss will show you how to have awesome one on ones that work for you (Includes a one on one meeting agenda).