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Great Questions for Improving Performance through 121s

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I recommend that you divide your 121s into three sections.
The first 10 minutes are for your team member to share what matters to them – but the second 10 minutes are yours.
The art of using this time well is to have some really well chosen and insightful questions.
Some of the questions that I think have been most effective for me are:

  • What else should I know about your work?
  • What would you like to tell me about this organisation?
  • Where do you see opportunities that we do not exploit?
  • Where do you see problems that we have not yet recognised?
  • What would you like to know from me about the organisation?
  • What do I do that you would like me to do more of?
  • What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness?
  • What would you like me to start doing?

Now some of these questions require that you have a pretty strong relationship already, so they are probably not for the very first 121 meetings. Wait until you have developed some rapport and trust.
It is important that you are prepared to listen to the answers and respond effectively.
If you are not prepared to act on the response to a question, or fully explain your reasons for not acting, then it is best not to ask the question.
Remember – this is a 121. It is not the Spanish Inquisition. You will probably not have time for more than 1 or 2 questions – especially if you are also using the 121 to give feedback and to coach (which you should be!). 121s are about regular, frequent conversations that allow you to cover ground over a prolonged period of time. So don’t rush it.

What questions have worked well for you in 121s?

More great questions here.

Performance Improvement with Brilliant 121s

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One-to-ones are weekly, structured, half hour meetings held individually with each of your team members. They provide the bedrock for an effective trusting relationship that is essential for high performing teams.

The most common excuse that managers give for not using One to Ones is that they will take too much time. In practice, managers who use One to Ones effectively report that they actually save time – lots of time – and improve performance quickly and permanently.

Key Benefits

  • Improve your relationship and communication with all members of your team
  • Find time to coach every member of your team – every week – to improve their performance
  • Save time on line management to invest in thinking more strategically and working on your own projects
  • Shift the emphasis from fire-fighting to creating value
  • Close the gap between practice, values and mission
  • Improve effectiveness, whether in the for profit or third sector

If you would like to learn more about 121s then please click here to find out more about our events.

There are some great 121 questions in this post.

Anger and Decision Making

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Imagine that there are two people. You have to choose one of them to make an important decision. The first is cool, calm and analytical. The second is red-faced, with a vein throbbing on the side of their neck, angry.

Who do you choose to make the decision? Of course its a no brainer. Cool calm and analytical right?

WRONG!

According to recent research

“angry subjects were better able to discriminate between strong and weak arguments than the ones who were not angry—suggesting that anger can transform even those people who are, by disposition, not very analytical into more careful thinkers”

Despite its reputation as a trigger for rash behaviour, anger seems to help people make better choices—even aiding those who are usually very poor at thinking rationally. This could be because angry people base their decisions on the cues that “really matter” rather than things that can be called irrelevant or a distraction.

So armed with this knowledge what is a good manager to do?

Well firstly I do not recommend that you go around making sure that everyone is good and mad before they decide whether to have tuna or cheese with their salad. No, save this knowledge for when a big decision has to be made.

Translate ‘anger’ into a ‘sense of urgency’. Make sure that people know that their decision will have consequences that matter – to them. Get the adrenaline flowing – this matters. Anger evolved as a physiological state designed to make us make things happen. And this is what good managers are all about. Making things happen – albeit through other people. Developing a culture that is characterised by a sense of urgency will help people to take more and better decisions.

But be careful. Although the researchers do not report on it, I am sure that while too much anger might not be an issue to a Neanderthal backed into a cave by a sabre toothed tiger – it would be an issue for a manager being asked about a slipped deadline by their boss. My guess is that you just need to ‘feel the edge’ to gain the benefit in your decision making at work.

So anger matters – and (at the right levels) it helps. It is a great motivator that can fuel good decision making and action. Anger and passion are just flip sides of the same coin. Just how much passion can your culture stand?

The Fat Cat, Improving Performance, Office Hours and 121s

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Office Hours

One of the bedrock management processes should be documented, 121 meetings, for 30 minutes every week, structured and planned well in advance with each and every direct report.

These save time and massively improve the quality of both the working and personal relationship as well as providing a platform for coaching, feedback, performance management and accountability.

In this article Paige Arnoff-Fenn learns a similar lesson. First she describes the scenario – a senior manager at work.

“He spends his entire day in meetings, walking between conference rooms or driving to his next appointment. He gets stopped in the hallways or gets messages through his Blackberry from his team to answer questions and make real-time decisions that keep their projects moving forward until he returns to his office after 5 p.m.

He eyeballs his e-mail throughout the day, multitasking in meetings, and checks voice mail during bio breaks, but he’s virtually never in his office during “normal business hours” whatever that even means anymore. There’s no “think time” to reflect and process information today, and we’re being inundated with more data and information than ever before.”

This manager decided to start holding ‘office hours’ for three hours each week.

He sent his team an e-mail to announce his plan and he arrived at his office at the scheduled time on the designated day. To his delight and surprise, members of his team stopped by all afternoon. Employees were thrilled to know they were guaranteed to find him sitting at his desk.

I have no doubt that the volume of e-mail from his team declined significantly. Because his team members perceive that he has power over them and their careers they find reasons to remind him that they are there and that they are doing good work – through his e-mail. If they know that they will get face to face time then this need to be ‘heard’ falls away.

Now I would not recommend a manager to implement ‘office hours’ in the way that this manager did it. I can imagine it being like a doctors waiting room when the office hours start. Or like a shoe shop on a busy day – please take a ticket and wait your turn. The lack of structure and purpose too would drive me mad. But with a little adjustment we would have a great system of 121s and a significant step towards becoming a high performing team would be taken.

If you would like to learn how to use 121s to improve performance in your team then please get in touch or attend one of our training sessions.

PS Take another look at the opening hours sign. Did you think that the Fat Cat was a Free House?