Have you ever been blindsided by the departure of a good team member? Have you had team issues boil over and affect long-term chemistry? Or, conversely, have you seen the positive momentum of a team with purpose and alignment between their interests and their roles and responsibilities?

1. Jason Evanish, Founder of GetLighthouse.com
One-on-Ones:
Your secret weapon to high performing teams
February 2015

2. @thuelmadsen#KISSwebinar
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3. Jason Evanish – GetLighthouse.com - @Evanish
Jason is the founder of Get Lighthouse. He previously ran
product at KISSmetrics, and co-founded the site Greenhorn
Connect, a hub for startup events and resources in the
Boston tech community.
Jason has been quoted in Fast Company, the Wall Street
Journal, and NPR. He is a regular speaker on topics of
customer development & product management and is now
applying those skills to help managers succeed with
Lighthouse.
You can read more of his learnings on his blogs at
JasonEvanish.com and GetLighthouse.com/Blog

4. @Evanish#KISSwebinar
Join the conversation on Twi er

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6. 1 Why are one-on-ones important?
2 What makes a good one-on-one?
3 How can you have consistently, great one-on-ones?
Everything you need to know about one-on-ones
4 Why is my excuse not a good one?
5 Where can you learn more?

7. “…if Tim doesn’t meet with each
one of his employees in the next
24 hours, I will have no choice
but to fire him and fire you. Are
we clear?”
- Ben Horowitz
in The Hard Thing About Hard Things

8. Why are One-on-Ones
so important?

9. “Perhaps the CEO’s most
important operational
responsibility is designing
and implementing the
communication
architecture for her
company.
Absent a well-designed
communication
architecture, information
and ideas will stagnate
and your company will
degenerate into a bad
place to work.”
— Ben Horowitz, investor at A16Z & former CEO of
Opsware

10. “…one-on-ones provide an
excellent mechanism for
information and ideas to
flow up the organization
and should be part of your
design.”
— Ben Horowitz, investor at A16Z and former CEO of
Opsware

11. What if you’re
not the CEO?

12. “As a middle manager, you are
in effect a chief executive of
an organization yourself.
…As a micro CEO, you can
improve your own and your
group’s performance and
productivity, whether or not
the rest of the company
follows suit.”
— Andy Grove, former CEO & Co-Founder of Intel

13. “Ninety minutes of your time can
enhance the quality of your
subordinate’s work for two
weeks, or for some eighty-plus
hours.”
- Andy Grove
in High Output Management

14. Andy and Ben are not alone.

15. What makes
One-on-Ones
so special?

16. “You need to meet 1-on-1, in
an unstructured way, with
all your best people.
…You won’t learn, or know,
what your top people need
to find their growth path at
your company. Where they
feel stalled out and
frustrated.
You have to ask.”
— Jason Lemkin, former CEO of EchoSign, partner at
Storm Ventures, and blogger at SaaStr.com

17. But why do they
all say this?
Show me the data!
1

18. “You can see a straight-line correlation between employee
engagement and overall effectiveness of their supervisors”
Source: Harvard Business Review, “How Damaging is a Bad Boss, Exactly?”
The be er the leader, the more engaged the team.

19. Source: The Gallup Organization,
“Employee Engagement, Satisfaction, and Business-Unit-Level Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis”
86%
Higher success rate
on customer metrics
78%
Be er Employee
Retention
63%
More Productive
44%
More Profitable
103%
Be er Injury &
Sick Day Rate
Engaged employees drive results.

20. Source: The Gallup Organization, “State of the American Workplace 2013”
Yet…
Only
30%
of employees
are engaged.

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22. The #1 reason people leave their jobs:

23. Why!?!?

24. Management is very different than individual work.

25. Management is a new set of skills to master.

26. You o en must do managerial + individual work.

27. Meetings can kill your productivity.

28. Good management is a long game.

29. The one-on-one is your best tool as a manager.

30. What
makes a good
One-on-One?

31. “The most important criterion
governing ma ers to be talked
about is that they be issues that
preoccupy and nag the
subordinate.”
- Andy Grove
in High Output Management

32. How to start one-on-ones with your team
• Pick a time you can stick to consistently.
• Schedule them weekly or bi-weekly for an hour.
• Send your team member a calendar invite.
• Emphasize to your team it’s their time.
More advice for starting at: h p://bit.ly/start1on1s

33. Tell your team members about them
Learn more & get a version you can copy at: h p://bit.ly/start1on1s

34. Get out of
the office
sometimes.

35. “While it’s not the manager’s job to set the
agenda or do the talking, the manager
should try to draw the key issues out of the
employee.
The more introverted the employee, the more
important this becomes. If you manage
engineers, drawing out issues will be an
important skill to master.”
- Ben Horowitz
in The Hard Thing About Hard Things

36. Bring good questions to ask
On Long Term Goals
• Do you feel like you’re making progress on your big goals here?
Why or why not?
On Their Improvement
• What’s a recent situation you wished you handled differently?
What would you change?
On You Improving
• What is something I could do be er?
On Building Rapport
• What do you like to do in your free time? What are your hobbies?
Find 101 more questions at: h p://bit.ly/1on1questions

37. “Equally important is what
‘writing it down’ symbolizes.
…the act implies a commitment,
like a handshake, that something
will be done…having taken notes,
[the manager] can then follow up
at the next one-on-one.”
— Andy Grove, former CEO & Co-Founder of Intel
Take Notes.

38. Make the conversation actionable
1) Discuss what you can both do by next one-on-one.
2) Create a social contract so you follow through.
3) Start the next meeting checking them off.

39. Learn the power of progress
The best days for people at work are the ones
where they feel progress on their work and the
things that are important to them.
Source: Harvard Business Review, “The Power of Small Wins”
“Of all the things that can boost inner work life, the most
important is making progress in meaningful work.”
— Teresa Amabile, Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

40. Don’t Give Up!
Warning!
The first few one-on-ones can
be awkward.

41. Story #1: Starting one on ones

42. How do you
have great
one-on-ones
consistently?

43. Get to know them beyond work
• Build rapport.
• Find common bonds.
• Learn what motivates and drives them.
Create the foundation for a trusting relationship.

44. Story #2: The Power of Rapport
Learn more about the power of rapport at: h p://bit.ly/RapportPower

45. Give them coaching & feedback
1. It’s be er received than a special meeting.
2. It’s still fresh in both your minds.
3. Get be er context on the situation.
4. Avoid overloading them during reviews.
5. Fix problems while they’re small.

46. Story #3: A coachable moment

47. Talk about their long term goals
• Don’t wait for annual reviews.
• A plan gets them excited
• Helps retain your team.
• Is a strong investment in your company.
Learn more about how to talk about Goals at: h p://bit.ly/TeamGoals

48. Story #4: The power of growing your people

49. Shop ideas and get buy-in
• Share ideas before implementing to get
candid feedback.
• Get their buy in on tough decisions
before company-wide announcements.
Make them feel heard & part of the process.

50. Story #5: Ge ing buy-in before a big change

51. Review your notes before each meeting.
1. Remember what you talked about.
2. Avoid giving conflicting advice.
3. Avoid their resentment.
4. Keep your promises.
5. Build momentum.

52. Don’t Cancel. Reschedule.
Learn more why you should never cancel at: h p://bit.ly/NeverCancel

53. Cheat codes
for the Pros

54. The Skip Level One-on-One
1. Get feedback on their manager.
2. Gain front line insights.
3. Give them mentorship.

55. The Peer One-on-One
1. Find ways to work be er together.
2. Share perspectives & knowledge.
3. Build Rapport.

56. But…
Debunking common excuses

57. But… I have an open door policy!
“I’d assumed [an open door] would
guarantee me a place in the loop, at
least when it came to major sources of
tension.
…Not a single production manager had
dropped by to express frustration or
make a suggestion in the five years we
worked on Toy Story… being on the
lookout for problems was not the same
as seeing problems.”
— Ed Catmull, Co-founder & President of Pixar Animation

58. But… a 15 minute catch up is enough.
“The subordinate must feel that
there is enough time to broach
and get into thorny issues.
I feel that a one-on-one should last
an hour…anything less, tends to
make the subordinate confine
himself to simple things that can
be handled quickly.”
— Andy Grove, Former Co-founder & CEO of Intel

59. But… I get drinks with the team all the time.
“You may think you
know if you have
drinks together, or go
see movies together, or
whatever, that you
know. But you don’t...
You have to ask.”
— Jason Lemkin, former CEO of EchoSign,
partner at Storm Ventures, and blogger at
SaaStr.com
Learn more from Jason at: h p://bit.ly/saastrmanagement

60. But… I don’t have time.
“What you quickly
realize as a manager is
that the single most
effective way to set up
a team for success in
the long run is to focus
on the people.”
— Julie Zhuo, Product Design Director at
Facebook
Learn more about management from Julie at: h p://bit.ly/jouleemanagement

61. But… my team doesn’t want to have them.
“A company lives or dies by:
• Ge ing the best people to join the
company
• Keeping them engaged & productive
• Making great decisions about what
these people should work on
A manager has only a few tools in her
arsenal to do these, and 1-1’s are perhaps
the most powerful.”
— Michael Wolfe, founder of Pipewise & Vontu, angel & advisor.
Learn more from Michael on 1 on1s at: h p://bit.ly/doineed1on1s

62. But… does it really ma er?

63. Keys to Remember
for
One-on-Ones

64. Many of today’s best companies have them

65. A checklist for great one-on-ones
! Make it their time
! 1 hour weekly or bi-weekly
! Keep a consistent schedule
! Never cancel (reschedule instead)
! Build rapport & push through awkward
! Bring good questions
! Take Notes
! Make it actionable for both of you

66. Further Reading
101 questions to ask in one-on-ones
Three keys to starting one-on-ones with your team
What to expect when you start having one-on-ones
21 reasons you should start one-on-ones with your team
The best of Andy Grove's High Output Management
Why you might be doing one-on-ones wrong

67. Questions?
Thue Madsen
Marketing Operations Specialist
KISSmetrics
@ThueLMadsen
tmadsen@kissmetrics.com
Jason Evanish
Founder
Get Lighthouse
@Evanish
Jason@GetLighthouse.com

68. THANK YOU
Jason Evanish
Founder, GetLighthouse.com