Why One-on-One Meetings Suck and What We Can Do About It by Kyle Evans
If you’re like me, you’ve probably experienced a variety of terrible one-on-one meetings.
As an employee, maybe you’ve seen the calendar reminder pop up and you’ve rolled your eyes, hoping that your manager will cancel or something else will come up. Or when the meeting actually happens, it quickly devolves into a boring status update. Or maybe you’ve been in a different situation where you really need to talk with your manager and are looking forward to finally getting a chance during your one-on-one meeting, only to have it canceled for the umpteenth time.
As a manager, you’ve probably maybe you’ve viewed these meetings as good opportunities to get status reports or “touch base.” Or maybe a quick chance to check in and then check it off the list so you can get onto other things, without giving it much thought.
Given how ubiquitous one-on-one meetings are, why are they so bad? And what can we do to make them not suck?
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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