We are… ALL of US, in the People Business!
It is the idea of getting back to the fundamentals of building our relationships: a one-to-one conversation, human connection with all the people in your business.
Read on below, and ask yourself; how good are my relationships?
One-to-ones are Top Priority
PBC Coach Philip Ashcroft was leader of a large organization, Veolia water. He had a “undisturbed quality time” principle for his one-to-one employee meetings and these meetings were sacrosanct. 9-11 was the only time Philip ever let himself get disturbed when in one of these meetings. It speaks volumes to how much he values one-to-ones. At PBC, we guide clients to systematize their one-to-ones by scheduling time as a priority, making a list so nobody gets left out, and most important of all, preparing well for the discussions. All the gurus agree. There is no point in having quantity of one-to-ones without quality.
Customize Your One-to-ones!
Every one-to-one discussion will be unique because individuals have their own values, needs, attitude, and expectations. Nevertheless, they should all follow the same path.
- The INTRO; They must begin with topics to be covered and why this is important. They must refer to your enterprise’s vision, values, and the participant’s personal contribution to them.
- LET’S BE CLEAR; They must be full of open questions and data. Data such as performance figures, standards and expectations. But not just what people need to do, but also how they should behave in doing it.
- DEVELOP A PLAN OF ACTION; Employees must come out with a clear plan of action for who is going to do what by when. Key to building employee engagement is that the plan is agreed and not just imposed.
- SUMMARY; Revisit the preceding 2 stages of your discussion for each individual topic in the one-to-one agenda. Then they should close out with a recap of what has been agreed, so that there is checking for understanding and little room for misinterpretation.
Bruce Tulgan’s ’27 Challenges Managers Face’lists out a comprehensive range of scenarios most commonly faced by business leaders. One-to-ones are the fundamental way to lead your organization to exceptional performance when they are practiced with rigor and discipline. Whether you are facing a one-to-one with someone with a bad work habit or poor performance, or wanting to inspire a star performer to even greater efforts, you will find sage counsel and many best practice tips for meeting the challenges, in this book. Conducting effective one-to-ones is THE key skill for managers. Tim David talks about 5 facets of human connections: authenticity, presence, curiosity, gratitude and patience. These are skills that can be trained and perfected, so that your business can prosper within your systematic approach to performance management.
How Much Relationship Capital is in Your Business?
One thing is for sure in business. If you are not making one-to-ones a priority you are not spending enough quality time with the people who make your business, and there is lots of room for growth in your relationship capital. As Cindy pointed out in her presentation, Ed Wallace promotes relationship capital as a key to business success. He, like Tim David, and Bruce Tulgan, emphasizes 3 management skills; credibility, integrity and authenticity.
If you want to talk about your return on people assets, call PBC for a free consultation.
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