Five Ways to Make One on One Meetings More Effective

April 28, 2025

Good morning! Enjoying the ride?  Better hold on.

Among my more faithful readers and responders week after week is Rosamond — and today is her birthday.  Happy Birthday! Happy Election Day to our friends and readers in Canada. Are you responding please or thank you to your artificial intelligence application? If so, according to Sam Altman, it costs, “tens of millions of dollars” each time you do.

(Does that mean all of us around the world, cumulatively, or just one of us?)Helpful Hint o’ the Day:  Perfection isn’t possible… check constantly to make sure you are directionally correct and you will make good progress.Also, as the old saying goes, Do not let perfection get in the way of progress.

• Trade policy changes are now on par with geopolitical instability as the biggest perceived disruptive forces in the global community.   (McKinsey Global Surveys, 2025)
  • From September 2024 through March 2025 the concern about trade policy changes skyrocketed by more than 3x, from about 25% of respondents to 80%.
• Here’s a quick quiz… everyone loves a quiz:  What are the top five (5) economies in the world relative to GDP?
• The most Roman Catholic areas of the United States — according to Pew Research?
  • New Jersey and Connecticut… also home to the wealthiest zip codes in the U.S. — no connection, I’m sure.
  • Will you watch — or re-watch — Conclave?
• Worth a read — or a listen:  Abundance, Klein/ Thompson, 2025
  • It will get you to thinking about the housing shortage — and other shortages — in a much new and different way.
• Counterintuitive?  Until just a few days ago, fast food giant, Chipotle, was not in Mexico.  Now it is, experimentally.
• Approximately 18% of young adults (ages 24-35) living in large metro areas in the U.S. live with their parents.  (Pew)
  • The rate is highest (where else?!) in California — where as many as one third live with parents — and the least number in good old Nebraska where it’s less than 3%.
• Municipal utilities across the United States are projected to encounter significant challenges related to water in the coming years.
  • Forty-seven of the 50 states face water stress; i.e., sufficient safe drinking water — while 100% of the states face flooding risks.
  • … private and public water and wastewater utilities are underfunded; user costs have been unable to close the funding gap, estimated at $110 billion currently…
  • … and projected to increase to $194 billion in the next 5 years.
  • Reason?  Aging infrastructure, operating expenses, and water quality challenges.
  • Fully closing the gap will require rethinking how water systems are funded; e.g., a problem ripe and ready for a solution.  (Barth, Etc., et al., 2025)
    • Reference also, for those who like to connect dots, Abundance up above!
• Every organization — arguably, every group of two or more humans — has a culture, by accident or by design.
  • Culture is the shared values and beliefs that guide thinking and behaviour.
  • As the old saying goes, Culture will win out over strategy every single time.
  • Fix your culture first, then establish your strategic directions… or do it at least concurrently.
• Five ways to make your one-on-one (direct report) meetings more effective:
  • Meet more often!
    • Believe it or not, it works… avoid the temptation to cancel, postpone, shorten, stall, or subordinate.
      • Do we really need to meet this week?  (Said by almost everyone at some point in time!)
      • Helpful hint:  Yes!
  • Align — and communicate — what you each want to get out of these meetings.
    • Establish a shared purpose; refresh, revise, revisit, focus, come back to it when you wander or start to chase squirrels.
    • A one size fits all approach won’t work; the goal of each meeting will vary based on the different humans involved.
  • Set the agenda collaboratively while focusing on:
    • Feedback
    • Recognition
    • Structure,
    • Development
    • Mission alignment
    • Personal connection.
    • Here are some good questions for your one-on-one visits — coming from the supervisor’s perspective:
      • What’s going well?
      • Where can I help?
      • and — slightly different — Is there anything you need in the way of resources?
      • What are your top priorities these days?
      • Is there anything new you’d like to put on my radar?
      • How are you feeling and doing outside of work?
• Focus on outcomes, not process.
  • Avoid micromanagement (process) while monitoring the measurables.
• Follow-up
  • Clarify, do your homework, circle back, fix stuff that needs fixing, prepare for the next one-on-one with clarity, focus, and positive energy.

The top five economies as of right now in 2025:  United States — China — Germany — California (if counted alone) — Japan — Bonus #6:  India  (Morning Brew)