Dear Yogesh,

I am Raj, working in an MNC in Pune. This is the case with one of my employees, who often talk during one-on-one reviews. He drifts off the topic to the point where I lose focus. Instead of the scheduled 30 minutes meeting, it goes on for more than an hour. I get bored to the extent that I want to shout and ask him to shut up, but then I have to maintain the decorum and often ask him to come back on track. I tried fixing the agenda in advance to have a time-boxed meeting, but it was not of much help. I ask questions like “what can I do to help you?” or “How can this be applied to your work?”. I am getting distracted and losing track of myself. Kindly help.

Regards,

Raj

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Dear Raj,

This situation is not uncommon. One often comes across such people, and when they happen to be your employees, it becomes challenging to communicate with them in group meetings or one-on-one. But then, you have to remember that everything is not lost.

I follow a guiding principle in such situations, which has greatly helped me: “On purpose, with a purpose.” Very often, we navigate various contours of life, career, relationships, etc., in a particular manner because that is the way we have always done it and have never asked ourselves why and why like this. “On purpose” means why we are doing it the way we are. ‘With purpose” means whether your actions align with your “why.”

On Purpose

In connection with one-on-one meetings with your employees, you must know the purpose of these meetings. Such meetings generally happen only once a week and are used to identify the gaps between expectations and what has happened. These gaps generally occur because of misunderstandings and failure to communicate effectively about the purpose. An effective one-on-one meeting can serve many purposes, some of which include to:

• Connect, build trust, and strengthen relationships
• Inform and update
• Provide mutual feedback for growth and improvement
• Discuss career development

When we are clear about the purpose of our meeting, we need to know from our employees about their expectations from the meetings. One-on-one sessions are more for the employee’s benefit, so they should be allowed to be in the driver’s seat. Give them clear guidelines for where you both need to head, the boundaries, the road, etc., and ensure that you both establish the purpose of that meeting.

Make sure you ask the employees what they like to discuss during the meetings, and then listen to them carefully and inform them about your intentions. That is how a mutual purpose can be created in a meeting. It can also be agreed upon to remind each other in case the other person takes the meeting off-track and strictly stick to the purpose of the meeting.

It would also be prudent to wonder why your employee behaves in such a manner. It may be because they are trying to reach out to someone to hear them out. Maybe it is necessary to vent out, especially after these pandemic and lockdown conditions where everyone has been dealing with the monotony for a long time. Giving them an occasional outlet by asking them, “how are they doing” will do wonders and allow the rest of the meeting to stay on track.

With Purpose

This is similar to modern-day cars, equipped with lane departure warning systems, where a warning is given to the driver the moment your car goes off its predetermined path. One can try these two-course correction strategies if the meeting drifts into unchartered territories.

Be curious. Many times frustration comes out as a result of our lack of curiosity. Curiosity helps us to empathize with people, put ourselves in their shoes and understand things from their perspective rather than just focusing on our own.

Listen to understand and not respond. The processing time is lesser than the speaking time. Thus we process faster than others can speak. This tends to make us lose focus. Hence it is better to listen to the big picture rather than the more minor details. 

Listening might be distracting, however, listening doesn’t necessarily mean getting carried away. Listen to understand but at the back of the mind, stay focused too. 

So, next, when you find yourself straying in meetings, remember to be “curious” and “listen to understand” while being “on purpose and with purpose”.

Best, 

Yogesh 

This blog is an adaptation of a blog written by Scott Robley on February 24th, 2021 – https://cruciallearning.com/blog/when-youre-bored-in-one-on-ones-with-employees/