Hi everyone,
I am looking for advice and encouragement. I started listening to the podcasts a couple of months ago now and am convinced of the importance and value in doing O3s with my folks but haven't had the gumption to start them yet. I am re-listening to the O3 podcasts (for at least the 3rd time) and it wasn't until this morning that I realized why I'm so hesitant. I'm scared I won't be consistent. The value lies in the consistency and in my folks seeing that I am putting communication with them as one of my top priorities. Here's my context:
I am a supervisor with 6 direct reports. I report to a manager and she reports to a director (...onwards up ...to an Exec Dir, an Assist. Deputy Minister, a Deputy Minister and, finally, a Minister). I work in a government environment and (shockingly) there are no performance reports required of any kind at any point throughout the year (I've been here 7 years and this has always been the case). HR is managed through a government department separate from ours and receiving official guidance on any HR topic is difficult at best. There isn't a desire at higher levels in the organization to develop that reporting due to people's experience with previous "flawed" systems. While I believe this lack of reporting/reviewing leads us to be ineffective and inconsistent with both performance and staff development, I'm not around that decision-making table. SO, a few years ago I started meeting quarterly with my folks individually to do quarterly planning and a "soft" review (since official reviews are not sanctioned). These went well but were too infrequent which limited their usefulness and they stuck out like a sore thumb since I am the only supervisor doing them. Then I had a couple of year-long maternity leaves and did not resume the practice when I returned because there has been talk of changing how various functions are managed and the timing didn't seem right.
So, my fear is that they will see that I used to do quarterly reviews and didn't keep them up and that this will be just another "flash in the pan" type attempt to manage. The more I'm listening to the podcasts, the more I'm realizing I still have a lot of professional maturing to do and need to hunker down and get to it rather than just thinking about it. According to DISC, I'm a high I (actually, IDSC) and a long time ago I realized I need to develop systems for myself to keep myself to task. I think my fear with this is that other people are impacted on a weekly basis. It's not just my time and it's for the long term (committment issues anyone?).
I hope the context was helpful and not just noise. As I said at the outset, I'm looking for advice and encouragement. I appreciate your time!
Do people email you, IM you,
Do people email you, IM you, and poke their head in your office often, to get your input or request things from you that you didn't plan to spend your time on at that moment? Does that hamper your creativity? Do you spend a lot of time fighting fires instead of doing the more important long-range planning and working on exciting growth opportunities within your workspace? Do people that don't work for you come asking for status updates or reports, and you find that you have to go chase people down to get the info put together?
Guess what, when you do One on Ones consistently, all of that stuff gets compartmentalized, and it frees up the rest of your week to do the exciting and creative things that high I's find energizing. When your team has a framework like that to work within, they start bringing creative ideas too, and the productivity of the whole team blossoms.
Yes, sometimes things get busy and you have to postpone or reschedule. But, you do have to be disciplined enough to keep to them even when you don't necessarily think it's the best way YOU can spend that 30 minutes. Even when there's more exciting things going on, even when you find them draining. Because your team needs them. Because as great as you probably are at your role, you can NOT contribute more singlehandedly than the 7 of you can together, if all 6 of them come away energized and with ideas and direction. Consider it an investment that will pay off in terms of both your effectiveness AND theirs.
My first month of one on ones, I had a couple of people who were skeptical, and it took them a little while to open up. Two years later, I still have a couple that don't bring a lot to the table most weeks. But more than half of my people came to that first meeting with a list of ideas that they were just waiting for an opportunity to share. And when I supported their ideas, it built trust and boosted morale, and they KEPT bringing ideas. Before the One on Ones, I guess they didn't feel like there was ever a convenient time to pitch them.
Done a restart successfully
I've started, abdandoned and restarted O3s successfully because my folks really liked them. They appreciated the "alone" time with me to discuss whatever was on their minds. One exclusively shares personal stuff, another nearly exclusively shares work stuff. It's a bit of a grind sometimes, I won't lie to you. In fact, some days I have to fake it - I feel so busy, but I know the meetings are important to my directs. Plus, I look forward to my OWN O3 with my boss. Grin.
(In fact, my boss started doing O3s because of mine. She's not an MT boss, that I know of, she's just amazing. We have a team member starting in 2 weeks and she casually mentioned she's thinking of doing the same weekly meeting with new team member as she does with me)
Point is, it could be seen as flavour of the month. So what. Keep it focused on your directs, keep it light. Don't use it as an excuse to bring up shortcomings or review items. Do take the opportunity to ask what development your team needs. You might be amazed at what interests them & be able to clear some tasks from your desk.
I have not had the experience that it cuts down on interruptions unfortunately. It may have actually made them worse, in that my "personal sharing" team member now stops "by" more often to share little stories. We're working on that. I'm working on positive feedback now, hoping to never get to negative.
What Maura said...
Definitely helped cut down on "have you got a minute?" questions.
It also had the unexpected benefit of making my directs feel valued. They know I'm busy, and so knowing that they had a meeting with me, rain or shine, really meant a lot to them. (They told me this, which was a wonderful surprise!)
Some days, yeah, you're going through the motions. But keep doing it, and you will see the payoff eventually.
Thank you!
This was the kind of advice and encouragement I was looking for. If anyone else has ideas or lessons learned re: the consistency, I'd love to hear them. In the meantime, I'm going to sit down with each direct to let them know that I'm going to be scheduling these for a few weeks from now and give them the thinking behind these meetings (thanks to the MT text provided in the O3 email sample). Thanks again!
Accountability
I also had a commitment issue when I started doing O3s. I was afraid I wouldn't have the discipline or time to have the meetings regularly. So...I went public. I announced to the whole group of directs that I was starting the meetings and handed out the schedule. I explained what the purpose of the meetings was and that I considered them very important. By announcing it publicly, I had an accountability mechanism. Then, once they started, everybody recognized the value and they came to be the meetings I looked forward to. I've done them for over 10 years and will admit that I have had to refresh them from time to time but they're still worth it - for me and my directs.