Your 1-1s have quietly turned into status updates
This is for you if your weekly 1-1s used to move people forward and have quietly become a status recap. You both show up, run the list, and leave. Nobody decided it; the meeting just drifted.
A standing meeting fills with whatever takes the least effort, and status always takes the least. Left alone, every recurring 1-1 slides there. The fix is not a new meeting or a longer one.
You need one standing question that does development work, dropped into the slot you already have. Not a fresh idea every week. A rotation.
So before the 1-1, open the person's own results. Rotate across three parts of them: The Five Types of Work, Discovering Your Strengths, and Uncovering Your Blind Spots. One question, one lens, one meeting. Next time, move to the next lens.
This is a bank, not a script. Pull one question that fits where the person is, ask it, and follow where it goes. The slot always carries one real question. Getting through a list is not the point.
Their work types. Open The Five Types of Work.
- Which type of work has your week had too little of lately?
- Of your primary and your complement, which one got squeezed out this month?
- If we moved one recurring task toward the work that gives you energy, what would you pick?
Their strengths. Open Discovering Your Strengths.
- Which of your top strengths has had nowhere to show up this month?
- Which one are you leaning on so hard right now that it is starting to cost you?
- Is there a problem on our plate that one of your strengths is built for?
Their blind spots. Open Uncovering Your Blind Spots.
- Each of these is the shadow of a real strength. Which one has been live for you lately?
- Where did a strength of yours, turned up high, land differently than you meant this week?
- What is one small guard we could agree on, so it costs you less next time?
Before your next 1-1, do one thing. Open that person's The Five Types of Work, pick one question above, and put it at the top of the agenda. Ask it before you touch the list.
For the meeting after, move to their strengths; the one after that, their blind spots. Three 1-1s in, the slot is doing development again, and you added nothing to your week.
