What should this behind closed doors meeting look like?

Here’s a 5 Step Method I learned from Dave Anderson, author of Up Your Business:

Step 1: Ask

Ask open ended questions. Ask about their goals, their progress, their frustrations. Sometimes just starting with “how’s everything been going?” can open up the floodgates. Your goal here is to ask questions to find out how you can help them do their job better, to gauge what they’re feeling, and what’s really going on in your company.

Step 2: Listen

As Stephen Covey wisely advised, ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’. Don’t interrupt with your diagnosis yet. Resist the urge to put judgment behind what they’re telling you. This will kill any meaningful conversation and perhaps even hinder future honesty. Right now you’re in discovery mode. Ask follow up questions if needed. Sometimes I’ll even jot a few notes down here, which shows I care and I’m paying attention to the details of what they’re saying.

Step 3: Coach

If you were coaching your kids soccer team or a professional football team, would your goal be to demean the players, judge their motives, or simply to help them get better? The same goes for coaching

your team in your business. You’ve heard them out, now is the time to give some input. The best way I’ve found is by doing so in a humble way. ‘Have you thought about…’, ‘have you tried…’, ‘what would happen if you did this…’. Mr. Anderson says to “focus on what they can control and not allow them to assume the posture of victim. Otherwise, one-on-ones tend to turn into therapy sessions.”

Help them work through it instead of just giving them the answers. Sure, you’ll help steer them in the right direction, but you ultimately want them to feel ownership of the ideas.

Step 4: Reinforce

Praise and reinforce the positive qualities the employee has displayed. Tell them what they’ve done right on the issues so far.

Step 5: Stretch

Challenge and establish accountability at this point. ‘Here are the actions we discussed that you’re going to try. I will follow up with you in 30 days to see how it went, ok?’ This sets a timeline and lets them know you’ll be holding them accountable to what you’ve agreed on.

Put your notes in a folder with the employees name on it in your desk drawer. Set a reminder on your calendar for the agreed upon follow up date and FOLLOW THROUGH. Not following up makes the whole process meaningless to the employee, even if you know they did what they said they would. They want to know you actually mean what you said, and this will make future sessions more meaningful.

Sessions like these are excellent opportunities to connect with your team. They will build meaningful relationships that will help grow your organization, so make them a regular part of what you do as a leader.