In this edition: One
on Ones are Meetings What's an MT Conference Really Like?
One on Ones Are Meetings
If your boss asked you to attend
a meeting, would you tell him no? Seriously - how likely would it be
that you would tell your boss, hey,
look, I really don't want to come,
or that you ignored her request and just didn't
show up?
We thought so. If you're like
everyone else, the answer is, are
you crazy? If my boss asks me to go
to a meeting, I GO. Frankly, he doesn't even really ASK, he just might
phrase it as a question to be nice.
So why then do so many managers,
when first learning about One on Ones, ask, what
do I do if my directs
don't want to do it? We are a
lot less flabbergasted by this than we
were years and years ago, but it still catches us off guard sometimes.
We've learned that one good way to answer is to turn the tables and ask
them the question above about their boss scheduling a meeting with
them. Usually, they figure it out.
In some cases, we think it's
because the manager who's asking really doesn't believe in the idea of
One on Ones. That somehow, they're different, or weird, or really NOT a
business meeting but rather a personal one. They think they're
different because the expressed purpose is NOT to talk about work
(although you probably know that's what gets talked about, even while
the expressed purpose is the relationship.) Those managers, we think,
at least in part, don't want to think about people, they want to think
about work. We hope they (you?) will remember that people do the work.
We also think that sometimes the
doubt comes from a lack of confidence in themselves as managers. In
other words, they're not sure about their authority, or if they know
they have the authority, they're not sure if they should insist, using
their role power to compel a meeting. In those cases, we tell them
about a Star Trek episode (TNG, Pen
Pals) where a new officer has to
insist...and his team member immediately assents. And we also remind
them that there's hardly a better idea to insist upon than investing in
their relationship with their directs.
One on Ones are meetings.
Business meetings, designed to improve results. They reduce costs, and
increase value. They reduce turnover, increase output, and reduce
mis-communication, and increase operational speed.
Who wouldn't want to insist on
that?
Jack Rumple, who posts
regularly on
our forums, attended the recent Denver Manager Tools Effective Manager
Conference. We asked him to share what his expectations were, and what
he got from the conference that he doesn't get from the podcasts.
Thank you for sharing, Jack.
Leading up to the
conference I
had enough success with the recommendations that I took to heart the
tips in the
Conference Preparation Materials
page on the website. I set
three goals:
Company:
Gather information I can use to present Manager
Tools to my company as an addition to their existing professional
development training.
Personal:
Meet at least one person who would be interested
in joining the Colorado Springs Manager Tools Meet-ups.
Process:
Practice the Feedback Model so I feel comfortable
rolling it out with my team.
After
the conference I went back to review my goals and assess if the
return was worth the investment. First, I did achieve all three goals.
I probably wouldn't have written down some of my notes about
Manager Tools, the organization, if I hadn't set my Company
goal beforehand. Second, yes it was every bit worth the investment in
money and in time.
Here are some of my
other
impressions, in no particular order.
I
was surprised that some of the attendees had never
listened to an episode. They knew about the conference because of their
boss or organization.
I
was surprised at the distances some attendees travelled.
I had been waiting for a local conference since I was attending on my
own costs. Some of the attendees were closer to New York, Washington
D.C., San Antonio, and L.A., so I thought they would have attended
conferences in those locations instead of traveling to Denver. It was
great to get to meet them.
When
you look at the agenda, there is only an hour or so
for each of the Trinity items. This barely covers the time it took to
cover the same material in the Basics feed. The podcast has expanded on
details within each Trinity item. If you've listened to all
of the podcast episodes, don't expect new revelations during
the conference, with two exceptions.
1) the whole team provides personal stories and examples along the way,
so you get a broader sense that this works everywhere. 2) New updates
to the coaching model and goal are introduced at the
conference before they appear in the podcast feed. This time I replaced
MT goals with DBQ (a.k.a., D.B. Cooper) Goals.
What
you can't get from the podcast, was a key
expectation of mine, and a key thing I got from attending the
conference was practicing Feedback and practicing Coaching with
immediate input from the Manager Tools team. The practice is role
playing where one person is the Direct, one person is the Manager, and
a third person is an Observer. The best part was the Observer role. It
turned the situation from a role playing game into actual real world
practice of the Feedback Model that I can take with me.
I
loved getting my full DiSC profile as part of the
conference. I mistakenly assumed that since DiSC was introduced as a
way of increasing effectiveness of Feedback that we would spend more
time with it. Now I realize that the Effective Manager Conference is
all about the Trinity. It is the Effective Communication Conference
where I'll learn more about DiSC.
I
was happy to meet Mark and Mike from the podcast. It was
also great to meet Maggie, Michael and Rich as well.
After
repeated warnings about the room being cold, I was
quite comfortable in the room and was prepared for it to be colder.
Don't take this the wrong way. I was definitely in the
minority here and "Cold Room" was again brought up
as a TALA in the Hot Wash. I plan on retiring in Montana where
I'll probably be snowed in for a week at a time in the
winter. Take to heart that the room will be cold if you attend a
conference.
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