Speaker 1: Do you know what you get when you put someone through eight years of corporate life in four different companies, having reported up to a total of nine different managers, and who took notes in every single one-on-one meeting? That's right. Trauma. You get trauma. No, just kidding. You actually get someone who can share some pretty practical tips to having productive one-on-ones with your manager. Let's get started. Hi friends. Welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Jeff. Come for the career tips and stay for the terrible math. If you do a quick Google search, you will find hundreds of articles teaching managers how to have one-on-ones with us, but rarely is there a training teaching us how to manage up effectively. In my personal experience, there is a very real benefit to managing your one-on-one meetings well. Basically, if you're so consistent and organized with one-on-ones, your manager will give you more flexibility when it comes to making business decisions as well. So in this video, I'm going to go over my top six tips on what you can prepare before, what to say during, and what to do after a one-on-one meeting so you get the most out of this process. Diving right into it, there are four things you want to do before your meeting. First, lock down a regular time slot on both of your calendars to show that you take your professional growth seriously. According to Google Rework, Radical Candor by Kim Scott, and other workplace research, the sweet spot for one-on-ones should be every week or two for 30 to 60 minutes. Second, set clear expectations around the content of these one-on-ones. Are you going to allocate half the time to business updates and the other half to professional development, or are you going to have dedicated development sessions every other week? Doing so ensures your priorities are not sidelined even as work gets busier and busier. Third, let your manager know your communication style. Are you someone like me who prefers direct, unfiltered feedback, or are you someone who needs a bit more context and a bit more discussion before proceeding on a course of action? This helps a manager communicate in a way that works for you too, specifically. Fourth, have one document that houses every meeting's agenda and notes. For me, I use a simple Google spreadsheet with four columns, date, agenda, notes, and action items. Throughout the week, both my manager and I will add agenda items as needed. During the meeting, I take notes under the bolded section titles, and action items always have a clear owner. I prefer a spreadsheet because I like to see what we discussed in the previous weeks at a glance, but obviously a Word doc or Notion page will work just as well. Pro tip number one, embed the document within the one-on-one calendar invite to minimize the friction for both you and your manager. Need to add something at a moment's notice? The document is just two clicks away. Pro tip number two, for special occasions like performance reviews or anything that needs a bit more context, for example, a large project roadblock or a conflict with another team member, send your manager a pre-read via email to give them the necessary information prior to the meeting itself. Moving on to what to say during the one-on-one, I use different structures based on the topic of that session. For business updates, I use the Rose, Thorn, and Bud method. By the way, we don't have time in this video to go over the professional development one-on-one structure, but let me know down in the comments if that's something that interests you as well. Pro tip number three is simply a win you experienced since the last time you two had a chat. This doesn't have to be a big win, the point is to start the meeting on a positive note. For example, hi Tim, so remember how I had trouble getting the product team on board with our new narrative? So I took your advice, showed them the results from the A-B test we ran, and they're now convinced this is the right messaging for that audience segment. Bonus points here if you can attribute some of that success to your manager since it shows you've listened to and acted on their previous advice. But more on that in a little bit. The Thorn is a challenge you've recently encountered and might need more support on. For example, the issue now is the product team needs additional resources to localize their product updates, but our budget is extremely limited. As a potential solution, I was thinking we could ask an internal team to help, and in return, we'd incorporate their content as well. Note that I threw out a problem and a solution. The solution doesn't have to be right, it's meant to open up the topic for discussion and convey you were proactive enough to brainstorm beforehand. The bud is a new idea you have or something you want to learn more about and you want your manager's input. This could be an experiment you'd like to run on an existing project that could lead to a larger impact, or simply asking how your current work fits into the larger business plan. I found this Rose Thorn bud structure to be great because one, it gives a very quick yet comprehensive business update of what you've been up to since your last one-on-one and shows your manager your thoughts moving forward. Second, it provides a sort of seamless transition into your next one-on-one. For example, I thought about your feedback on the experiment I want to run, and here's the analysis as a follow-up. Speaking of follow-up, unfortunately, your work does not end even when the one-on-one meeting is over. Following these chats, I usually like to take 10 minutes, review my notes to make sure I'm not missing anything, and list out the action items in order of priority. I then schedule in some time on my calendar between now and the next one-on-one to follow up on the action items I'm responsible for. For the ones that can't get done in a week or two, I just immediately add that to the agenda for next week to remind myself to give a progress update. And since I usually have the one-on-one spreadsheet pinned in my Chrome browser, I would add content as necessary throughout the week instead of, say, 30 minutes before the meeting and risk forgetting to input some key points. Pro tip, if you notice your manager forgot to follow up on an action item, you want to remind them a few days before your next meeting with something like, Hi Tim, just a gentle nudge regarding the intro email with Jane. It would be ideal to connect with her before Wednesday so that the timeline stays on track. This is a great way to get their help and you're letting them know, in a not-so-subtle way, that you're very on top of your stuff and you should definitely be considered for that raise. To quickly recap, before the meeting, you want to align with your manager the cadence, format, and content of your one-on-ones, and you want to maintain a document that captures takeaways and action items. During the meeting, use the Rose, Thorn, and Butt method for business updates since it helps you present your achievements in a concise and structured way. And after the meeting, follow up by holding both yourself and your manager accountable. If you enjoyed this topic, you might like my playlist on how to succeed in the first years of your career. See you on the next video. In the meantime, have a great one.