Rock the Check-In
An easy guide for meaningful and effective 1:1s with your team
by Kat Schulte | February 2023
The check-in. This simple often overlooked management practice holds the potential to revoluntionize work together in unexpected ways. As you kick off a whole new year, we are here with a fresh structure to help you ROCK check-ins with your team.
It’s not magic, it’s consistency.
Step one for awesome check-ins with your people is CONSISTENCY. You need consistent rhythms to build momentum and accountability with your team. Especially in high-paced, high-stress teams, we need to check in on goals, progress, and issues at regular intervals in order to not run off the rails or lose sight of the important in favor of the urgent. Here are the rhythms I recommend:
- Yearly Review – high level review of contributions and time to set career goals
- Monthly – use one of your weekly check-ins to review and set goals and check-in on career development
- Weekly – utilize the Mastering the 1:1 PDF
“Now, you, the team leader, might think, Well, I would love to check in with my people every week, but I can’t. I’ve simply got too many people! If that’s you, then yes—you have too many people.”
– Ashley Goodall
Micro *Meaningful* Management
Most of us have had negative experiences with micromanagement; and in trying to avoid doing that to our people we fail to adequately support them.
Checking in will not feel like micromanagement if we make the interaction meaningful for our people. This may feel like it takes time we do not have, but in the end this structure can SAVE us time by preventing miscommunication and fueling more engaged and productive work.
The Art of the 1:1
Take the guesswork out of your 1:1s and download AGC’s Mastering the 1:1 pdf for easy to follow prompts for each section. The basic structure and key components are below, spend at least 30 minutes, take notes, and revisit prior to the next check in.
Connection – How are they outside of work? As the saying goes, people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Status updates – Where are we at on key projects and what issues have arisen?
Goal progress – Are quarterly goals on track or off track?
Issues / Coaching areas – Discussion and coaching around project issues or off-track goals.
Action items – What will they do? When will they do it? How will you know?
Development – At the first 1:1 of each month, check in on the employees career development goals
1:1 Secret Sauce
While mastering the WHAT of the 1:1, it is imperative to remember the HOW. The secret sauce of all your check ins = the quality of your presence.
Maya Angelou is famous for saying, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
How you show up with your people will speak volumes to them. Being fully present and listening to understand will make your team feel seen, heard, and empowered.
Not sure how to set quarterly goals with your people?
Want to dig in deeper to team rhythms, communication, or feedback with your team? We are here for you! Check out the Manage Like a Boss program to hone the human skills needed to lead people well.
This is super helpful! This could be a whole session of training. As simple as it seems, it is not super easy to implement and honor. Thank you for this Kat!
You are right, Lisa!! We can spend a lot of time digging into this, and we do! There is one session devoted to it specifically in our Manage Like a Boss program – although we also talk about goal setting in that 2-hour session it is pretty connected. Kat and I are also building a 3-hour deep dive for a team per their request. More to come on this soon 🙂
Love your template, thanks for sharing!