Is It Time To Simplify Your 1:1?
Did you know strong 1:1 relationships influence your team's psychological safety?
Could your 1:1 be way simpler?
What if … your 1:1 only did ONE job? Making problems solve-able.
Research is showing if your team member ONLY got help figuring out a roadblock, they’d define your relationship as safer.
Positive relationships encourage unusual levels of effort.
Teams with positive 1:1 relationships with their peers and leaders are more likely to define themselves as safer to perform and express themselves in.
Yet it’s not the length of time we spend together that dictates the strength of a relationship, but how meaningful it is to us.
The world's longest study on happiness discovered that good relationships were the greatest predictor of health and the quality of those connections was more impactful than the frequency.
This is good news for leaders: you don’t need to spend more time with your teams if you’re stretched.
It just needs to be sincerely useful to your direct report, and of course, you.
It’s not that you need to spend more time with your team.
You just need to make it more meaningfully useful.
1:1’s that are useful (i.e. reduce roadblocks for team members, give you visibility, allow you both to get on the same page), are an excellent way to increase safety in your team.
Make your 1:1s useful to increase safety.
Technically, a 1:1 could include anything you like.
But if you only did one thing, research shows removing roadblocks will improve the safety of your relationship, leading to better performance over time.
For example, one study of 1,000 teams discovered two things that shifted the dial on psychological safety:
12% increase in safety when leaders treated each team member as individual contributors, with individual needs, in 1:1s.
6% increase in safety when leaders spent 1:1 time removing team roadblocks.
Obviously your main goal as a boss is to get results.
You get your results by ensuring your people are engaged, clear on goals, give them feedback and by managing your stakeholders experiences along the way.
To make that happen, it’s your job to help those working with you, to see it as their goal also, to get those results. The only way they’re going to care about that is if there’s a positive relationship where it’s clear to them, you care about their career.
Making it your mission to help them elevate their career, either by being useful, removing roadblocks, or mentoring them if it’s appropriate, are tactical ways you can build that foundation and increase psychological safety in your team.
Reducing interpersonal fear, by working on creating useful 1:1 relationships, is one way you can show you have a positive intent towards your team.
Recap: improving 1:1 relationships to build safety.
Help your direct report remove roadblocks in 1:1s.
Consider your 1:1 as an exercise in showing positive intent.
Find ways to make your 1:1’s more useful rather than tickbox.
Do your leaders need these skills now?
No need to wait. Get your leaders trained in psychological safety today.
Creating Psychological Safety Programme.
For leaders and individual contributors.