This document summarizes a webinar on one-on-one meetings between managers and their direct reports. It discusses why one-on-ones are important for information sharing, engagement, and retention. Experts like Andy Grove and Ben Horowitz emphasize their value. The document then covers best practices for one-on-ones, including making them consistent, building rapport, providing feedback, and discussing goals. Common excuses for not having effective one-on-ones are debunked. The key is to make one-on-ones a priority and stick to some basic guidelines.

1. Jason Evanish, Founder of GetLighthouse.com
One-on-One Meetings:
Everything you need to know
to drive performance & prevent turnover.

2. @Get_Lighthouse#1on1swebinar
Join the conversation on Twitter

3. Jason Evanish – CEO, GetLighthouse.com - @Evanish
Jason is the CEO & founder of Get Lighthouse, which helps
managers in dozens of countries prevent turnover & motivate
their teams through helpful software, and research-backed,
insightful content.
He previously ran product at KISSmetrics, and co-founded the
site Greenhorn Connect, which was acquired by TCN in 2014.
You can read more great management lessons on the
Lighthouse blog at GetLighthouse.com/Blog and start a free
trial of Lighthouse at GetLighthouse.com
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4. 1 Why are one-on-ones important?
2 What makes a good one-on-one?
3 How can you have consistently, great one-on-ones?
Everything you need to know about one-on-ones
4 Why is my excuse not a good one?
5 Where can you learn more?
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5. “…if Tim doesn’t meet with each one of
his employees in the next 24 hours, I
will have no choice but to fire him and
fire you. Are we clear?”
- Ben Horowitz
in The Hard Thing About Hard Things
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6. Why are One-on-Ones
so important?

7. “Perhaps the CEO’s most
important operational
responsibility is designing and
implementing the
communication architecture for
her company.
Absent a well-designed
communication architecture,
information and ideas will
stagnate and your company will
degenerate into a bad place to
work.”
— Ben Horowitz, investor at A16Z &
former CEO of Opsware
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8. “…one-on-ones provide an excellent
mechanism for information and
ideas to flow up the organization
and should be part of your design.”
— Ben Horowitz, investor at A16Z and
former CEO of Opsware
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9. What if you’re
not the CEO?

10. “As a middle manager, you are in
effect a chief executive of an
organization yourself.
…As a micro CEO, you can improve
your own and your group’s
performance and productivity,
whether or not the rest of the
company follows suit.”
— Andy Grove, former CEO & Co-Founder of Intel
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11. “Ninety minutes of your time can
enhance the quality of your subordinate’s
work for two weeks, or for some
eighty-plus hours.”
- Andy Grove
in High Output Management
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12. Andy and Ben are not alone.
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13. What makes
One-on-Ones
so special?

14. “You need to meet 1-on-1, in an
unstructured way, with all
your best people.
…You won’t learn, or know, what your
top people need to find their growth
path at your company. Where they
feel stalled out and frustrated.
You have to ask.”
— Jason Lemkin, former CEO of EchoSign, partner
at Storm Ventures, and blogger at SaaStr.com
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15. But why do they all
say this?
Show me the data!
1

16. “You can see a straight-line correlation between employee
engagement and overall effectiveness of their supervisors”
Source: Harvard Business Review, “How Damaging is a Bad Boss, Exactly?”
The better the leader, the more engaged the team.
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17. GE was able to “drive a fivefold productivity increase
in the past 12 months” and sourced a number of very
profitable ideas for improvements inside and out of the
organization.” [1]
Adobe saved, “approximately 80,000 hours of our
manager’s time in the annual review process; and saw a
30 percent reduction in voluntary turnover.” [2]
The ROI of great one-on-ones:
Sources: [1] Harvard Business Review, “GE’s Real-Time Performance Development”
[2] Deloitte University Press, “Performance Management: The Secret Ingredient”
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18. Source: The Gallup Organization, “Employee Engagement, Satisfaction, and Business-Unit-Level
Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis”
Engaged employees drive results.
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19. Source: The Gallup Organization, “State of the American Workplace”
Yet…
Only
30%
of employees
are engaged.
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20. The #1 reason people leave their jobs:
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21. “Ninety minutes of your time can
enhance the quality of your subordinate’s
work for two weeks, or for some
eighty-plus hours.”
- Andy Grove
in High Output Management
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22. “We have this religion that everyone
has one-on-ones on the team.
…We think everyone should be doing it. It
just leads to a happier work place, and it
takes almost no investment.
It really pays off.”
— David Cancel, CEO of Drift & former CPO of HubSpot
One-on-Ones have a huge ROI
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23. What
makes a good
One-on-One?

24. The One-on-One is your best tool as a manager.
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25. “The most important criterion
governing matters to be talked
about is that they be issues that
preoccupy and nag the
subordinate.”
- Andy Grove
in High Output Management
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26. Tell your team members about them
Learn more & get a version you can copy at: http://bit.ly/Start1on1s
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27. How to start one-on-ones with your team
•Pick a time you can stick to consistently.
•Schedule them weekly or bi-weekly for an hour.
•Send your team member a calendar invite.
•Emphasize to your team it’s their time.
More advice for starting at: http://bit.ly/Start1on1s
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28. Get out of
the office
sometimes.
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29. “Great leaders are great listeners.
…You have to ask a lot of questions and
you have to really listen to the answers,
because in every answer there are at least
3 more questions you want to be asking.
Until you get to the bottom and
everything is out there, you can’t start to
build solutions.”
— Melanie Whelan, CEO of SoulCycle
Ask Questions.
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30. “While it’s not the manager’s job to set the agenda or do
the talking, the manager should try to draw the key
issues out of the employee.
The more introverted the employee, the more important
this becomes. If you manage engineers, drawing out
issues will be an important skill to master.”
- Ben Horowitz
in The Hard Thing About Hard Things
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31. Bring good questions to ask
On Long Term Goals
• Do you feel like you’re making progress on your big goals here? Why or
why not?
On Their Improvement
• What’s a recent situation you wished you handled differently? What
would you change?
On You Improving
• What is something I could do better?
On Building Rapport
• What do you like to do in your free time? What are your hobbies?
Get over 100 Suggested Questions to help guide your one-on-ones in Lighthouse
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32. “Equally important is what ‘writing it
down’ symbolizes.
…the act implies a commitment, like a
handshake, that something will be done…
having taken notes, [the manager] can
then follow up at the next one-on-one.”
— Andy Grove, former CEO & Co-Founder of Intel
Take Notes.
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33. Make the conversation actionable
“Unless commitment is made, there are
only promises and hopes… but no plans,”
— Peter Drucker, legendary leadership expert & author
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34. Make the conversation actionable
1) Discuss what you can both do by next one-on-one.
2) Create a social contract so you follow through.
3) Start the next meeting checking them off.
Lighthouse automates this follow up for you and your team.
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35. Learn the power of progress
Source: Harvard Business Review, “The Power of Small Wins”
“Of all the things that can
boost inner work life, the most
important is making progress in
meaningful work.”
— Teresa Amabile, Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard Business School.
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36. Stick with it!
Warning!
The first few one-on-ones can
be awkward.
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37. Story #1: Starting one on ones
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38. How do you have great
One-on-Ones
consistently?

39. Get to know them beyond work
“Treat your peers as
interesting fellow humans,
and you may be surprised
what it does for their
motivation, dedication, and
engagement.”
— Camille Fournier, former CTO of
Rent the Runway
Read 81 ideas on building rapport with anyone at http://bit.ly/HowtoBuildRapport
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40. Rapport is essential for engagement
Source: Gallup, “State of the American Manager”
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41. Story #2: The Power of Rapport
Learn more about the power of rapport at: http://bit.ly/RapportPower
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42. Story #2: The Power of Rapport
Learn more about the power of rapport at: http://bit.ly/RapportPower
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43. Give them coaching & feedback
Source: Harvard Business Review, “Millennials want to be Coached at Work”
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44. Give coaching & feedback in one on ones
1. It’s better received than a special meeting.
2. It’s still fresh in both your minds.
3. Get better context on the situation.
4. Avoid overloading them during reviews.
5. Fix problems while they’re small.
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45. Story #3: A coachable moment
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46. Talk about their long term goals
Learn more about this leading cause of turnover at: http://bit.ly/GoalsTurnover#1on1swebinar

47. Talk about their long term goals
Learn how to start a career conversation at: http://bit.ly/TeamGoals
“Companies have long crafted
personalized roles and career paths
for their stars…
Yet, it is possible - indeed necessary -
to extend this personalized approach
to all employees.”
— Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of Linkedin
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48. Talk about their long term goals
• Don’t wait for annual reviews.
• A plan gets them excited
• Helps retain your team.
• Is a strong investment in your company.
• Leverages the Progress Principle.
Learn more about how to talk about Goals at: http://bit.ly/TeamGoals
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49. Create a plan together
Learn more about how to talk about Goals at: http://bit.ly/TeamGoals#1on1swebinar

50. Story #4: The power of growing your people
Learn more about helping your team grow with The Alliance book.
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51. Shop ideas and get buy-in
• Share ideas before implementing to get
candid feedback.
• Get their buy in on tough decisions before
company-wide announcements.
Make them feel heard & part of the process.
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52. Story #5: Getting buy-in before a big change
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53. Be prepared by reviewing your notes
1. Remember what you talked about.
2. Avoid giving conflicting advice.
3. Avoid their resentment.
4. Keep your promises.
5. Build momentum.
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54. Don’t Cancel. Reschedule.
Learn more why you should never cancel at: http://bit.ly/NeverCancel
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55. Cheat codes
for the Pros

56. The Skip Level One-on-One
1. Get feedback on their manager.
2. Gain front line insights.
3. Give them mentorship.
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57. The Peer One-on-One
1. Find ways to work better together.
2. Share perspectives & knowledge.
3. Build Rapport.
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58. But…
Debunking common excuses

59. But… I have an open door policy!
“I’d assumed [an open door] would
guarantee me a place in the loop, at least
when it came to major sources of tension.
…Not a single production manager had
dropped by to express frustration or
make a suggestion in the five years we
worked on Toy Story… being on the
lookout for problems was not the same
as seeing problems.”
— Ed Catmull, Co-founder & President of Pixar Animation
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60. But… a 15 minute catch up is enough.
“The subordinate must feel that
there is enough time to broach and
get into thorny issues.
I feel that a one-on-one should last
an hour…anything less, tends to
make the subordinate confine
himself to simple things that can be
handled quickly.”
— Andy Grove, Former Co-founder & CEO of Intel
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61. But… I get drinks with the team all the time.
“You may think you know
if you have drinks
together, or go see movies
together, or whatever, that
you know. But you don’t...
You have to ask.”
— Jason Lemkin, former CEO of
EchoSign, partner at Storm Ventures, and
blogger at SaaStr.com
Learn more from Jason at: http://bit.ly/saastrmanagement
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62. But… I don’t have time.
“What you quickly realize
as a manager is that the
single most effective way to
set up a team for success in
the long run is to focus on
the people.”
— Julie Zhuo, Product Design Director at Facebook
Learn more about management from Julie at: http://bit.ly/jouleemanagement
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63. But… my team doesn’t want to have them.
“A company lives or dies by:
• Getting the best people to join
• Keeping them engaged & productive
• Making great decisions about what these
people should work on
A manager has only a few tools in her
arsenal to do these, and 1-1’s are perhaps
the most powerful.”
— Michael Wolfe, founder of Pipewise & Vontu, angel & advisor.
Learn more from Michael on one-on-ones at: http://bit.ly/doineed1on1s
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64. But… does it really matter?
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65. Keys to Remember
for
One-on-Ones

66. Andy and Ben are not alone.
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67. A checklist for great one-on-ones
✓ Make it their time
✓ 1 hour weekly or bi-weekly
✓ Keep a consistent schedule
✓ Never cancel (reschedule instead)
✓ Build rapport & push through awkward
✓ Bring good questions
✓ Take Notes
✓ Make it actionable for both of you
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68. Recommended Further Reading
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69. Learn More:
• Manager? You can sign up for a FREE trial of
Lighthouse software to have awesome 1 on 1s
with your team at GetLighthouse.com
• Want to bring these habits to your whole
company? Learn more and sign up for a
demo at GetLighthouse.com/solutions
Have unused end of year budget? Pre-pay for 2017 and save.
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70. Questions?
Jason Evanish
CEO & Founder
Get Lighthouse
@Evanish
Jason@GetLighthouse.com
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