The four main types of one-on-one meetings are: 1) One-on-ones with direct reports, 2) One-on-ones with your manager, 3) Skip-level meetings, and 4) Peer-to-peer meetings. Each serves a unique purpose in building trust, improving communication, and surfacing challenges within teams. (source)
One-on-ones with direct reports help managers build trust, stay aligned on messaging, and learn about on-the-ground challenges. These meetings provide a psychologically safe space for employees to share feedback and for managers to stay connected with their teams. (source)
Best practices include maintaining consistency in scheduling, ensuring psychological safety, making feedback low effort and high benefit, and allowing the direct report to own the meeting. Using models like 10/10/10 (10 minutes each for the direct report, manager, and future planning) can help structure the conversation. (source)
Managers can encourage feedback by creating a safe environment, acting on feedback received, and using techniques like the "lettuce pact" to make sharing easier. It's important to show that feedback is valued and leads to positive change. (source)
One-on-ones with your manager are an opportunity for growth and managing up. They allow employees to communicate their goals, challenges, and feedback, helping managers support their development and improve retention. (source)
Employees should set expectations, drive the meeting by adding agenda items, and be specific about the feedback they seek. Taking ownership of the agenda and following up on commitments helps maximize the value of these meetings. (source)
Skip-level meetings connect employees with senior leadership, providing a chance to surface issues that may not be visible to executives and to clarify company strategy. They help reduce miscommunication and foster empathy between leadership and staff. (source)
Employees should use skip-level meetings to ask questions about company strategy, share feedback, and clarify any uncertainties. It's important to communicate the purpose of the meeting in advance to avoid confusion. (source)
Peer-to-peer one-on-ones help colleagues share challenges, improve cross-functional collaboration, and build empathy. These meetings can reduce finger-pointing and foster better understanding between teams. (source)
Start by meeting regularly with peers who are closest to your role or projects. It's not necessary to meet with all peers frequently; prioritize those whose work most directly impacts yours. (source)
You can access a large collection of free meeting agenda templates, including those for one-on-ones, skip-level, and peer meetings, at Spinach AI's agenda templates page.
Spinach AI automates meeting agendas, takes accurate notes, and automates post-meeting tasks, allowing managers to focus on meaningful conversations and follow-ups. (source)
Examples include: What has been the highlight and lowlight of your past week? What goals are you tracking? Any blockers I can help remove? What could I do differently to help you more? How happy are you with your work-life balance? (source)
Spinach AI provides tools for sharing performance feedback and tracking goals, making it easier for managers and employees to stay aligned and focused on outcomes. (source)
Spinach AI offers a variety of resources, including agenda templates, guides on one-on-one meetings, and reports on high-performing teams. These resources help managers and teams run more effective meetings. (source)
You can book a free meeting tune-up with Spinach AI experts, such as Brennan McEachran or Jocelyn Brown, to receive personalized advice on running better meetings. (source)
Spinach AI uses AI-powered technology to automatically capture meeting notes, action items, and outcomes, allowing participants to stay engaged in the conversation without manual note-taking. (source)
Spinach AI facilitates cross-functional collaboration by providing tools for peer-to-peer meetings, automating documentation, and integrating with popular communication platforms. (source)
Spinach AI integrates with tools like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, and Salesforce, enabling seamless meeting management and workflow automation. (source)
Spinach AI provides onboarding checklists and automates meeting documentation, making it easier for managers to onboard new employees and ensure a smooth transition. (source)
Spinach AI offers an AI Meeting Assistant, automated note-taking, workflow optimization, AI-powered insights, seamless integrations with tools like Zoom and Slack, and tailored solutions for different roles such as product managers, sales, and engineering teams. (source)
Yes, Spinach AI provides a Transcript & AI Summary API, available as an add-on for some plans and included in the Enterprise plan. This API enables advanced transcript and summary generation. (source)
Spinach AI automates tasks such as generating sprint plans, PRDs, managing tickets, and updating CRM systems, reducing administrative burdens and improving workflow efficiency. (source)
Spinach AI is SOC 2 Type 2 certified (verified by EY), GDPR compliant, and HIPAA compliant. It uses TLS and AES-256 encryption, supports SAML SSO, SCIM, admin controls, and custom data retention policies. (source)
Spinach AI never uses user data for training, maintains strict privacy standards, and offers robust encryption and compliance features to protect sensitive information. (source)
Spinach AI can be set up almost instantly by signing up with Google or Microsoft accounts and connecting calendars. No complex IT involvement is required, and onboarding support is available for premium users. (source)
Customers consistently praise Spinach AI for its ease of use and intuitive design. For example, Dan Robidoux (Careviso) and Belén Medina (Do It Consulting Group) highlight its natural workflow and helpful integrations. (source)
Industries using Spinach AI include sales, customer success, technology, revenue operations, consulting, and healthcare technology, as demonstrated in public case studies and testimonials. (source)
Notable customers include Infinite Ranges, AlfaDocs, Authvia, EDB, Do It Consulting Group, and Careviso. These organizations use Spinach AI for sales, customer success, engineering, and more. (source)
Spinach AI addresses pain points such as manual note-taking, administrative overhead, workflow inefficiency, extracting insights from user feedback, and cross-team collaboration. (source)
Spinach AI provides role-specific features, such as PRD generation for product managers, sprint planning for engineering, CRM integrations for sales, and onboarding automation for HR and customer success teams. (source)
Customers can expect increased productivity, streamlined workflows, enhanced collaboration, data-driven decision-making, and improved customer engagement. (source)
Spinach AI stands out for its tailored features for different roles, advanced AI-powered insights, seamless integrations, and customizable solutions. Customers like Jason Oliver (Product Director) and Ron Meyer (Alliance Executive) highlight its specificity and productivity benefits. (source)
Case studies include Infinite Ranges (sales), AlfaDocs (customer success), Authvia (technology), EDB (revenue operations), Do It Consulting Group (consulting), and Careviso (healthcare technology). These highlight improvements in note-taking, workflow efficiency, and team communication. (source)
Spinach AI analyzes user feedback to uncover trends, pain points, and opportunities, enabling teams to make informed, data-driven decisions. (source)
Spinach AI requires users to sign up with Google or Microsoft accounts and connect their calendars. It integrates with popular meeting and collaboration tools for seamless adoption. (source)
Spinach AI offers tailored solutions for sales professionals, product managers, customer success, HR, engineering, agile coaches, and finance teams, addressing their unique pain points with role-specific features. (source)
Spinach.ai is enterprise-ready, offering robust security and compliance with SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and HIPAA certifications. The Enterprise plan provides advanced features essential for large organizations, including SAML SSO, custom data retention, a dedicated API, compliance monitoring, and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).
Brennan McEachran, CEO and Co-founder of Spinach AI, and revenue leader, Jocelyn Brown recently shared their wisdom on 4 different types of one-on-ones and why you need them in your calendar. Want an overview? Read on!
Nicole Kahansky
Why are one-on-ones the best tool in a manager’s toolkit? 🛠
Last month, Brennan McEachran, CEO and Co-founder of Spinach AI and Jocelyn Brown, former SVP of Customers and Revenue, ran a webinar that delved into 4 different types of one-on-ones and how you can leverage them to become a better manager and employee.
If you couldn’t make it to the chat, don’t worry. In this article, we review their conversation and look at the purpose, best practices and try-it-tomorrow tips for:
Every manager wants to be trusted by their team (we hope!). Conducting one-on-ones with your direct reports are one of the best ways to build that foundation. But that’s only the beginning.
At a very basic level, your one-on-ones with employees are a routine cadence to discuss growth, work, motivation, challenges, etc. They’re a dedicated space you can rely on to build rapport and trust, and share news, feelings and frustrations.
But they go beyond that too. Jocelyn explains that during her time as SVP Customer Sales and Revenue, she stuck with 1:1s for two major reasons:
Your one-on-ones with employees help better connect you not only with your respective direct reports, but with the entire company.
Here are a couple of best practices to keep in mind to make the most out of your dedicated time with employees:
Tip: While it’s great to meet with each of your direct reports for an hour each week, that’s not always doable! Especially for those with many direct reports — the hours can start to add up. Choose a duration that you can reliably follow-through on.
High safety: In a study by Google, psychological safety is cited as the highest leading indicator of team performance. And your one-on-ones are the single highest psychologically safe moment for your team. They should be able to bring up anything they want to discuss without fear.
Low effort: Sharing feedback in your one-on-ones should be low effort for your direct reports. If it feels like they’re preparing for their PhD dissertation every time they give you feedback, something’s wrong.
High benefit: If you don’t act on feedback, you’re likely a low benefit manager. And, at a certain point, your team will stop coming to you with concerns because they believe that there’s no point. Make sure you take feedback seriously so your employee can see the benefit of sharing.
💡 Try-it-tomorrow tip: The lettuce pact. The lettuce pact is an easy hack to encourage feedback sharing on your team. Brennan explains below:
When we asked webinar attendees what types of one-on-ones they’re currently having, 1:1s with managers were cited as the most common.
From a direct report’s perspective, one-on-ones are the best opportunity to grow and manage up.
Why?
It’s in your manager’s best interest to know how you’re doing. They want to retain you. Recruiting is a time-intensive and expensive process. In fact, it can cost up to 150% of your yearly salary to replace you.
But here’s the thing: managers can’t read your mind. If you can tell them how you want to grow and help them focus on what’s important for you, it’s actually a gift for them. After all, part of their job is retaining a high-performing team.
Not to mention the benefits for you as an employee. When your manager has an understanding of what you’re looking for in your work and career, it’ll help make your goals easier to achieve.
Psst 🤫: Need help thinking of what to ask? Check out this round-up of 121 one-on-one questions or choose from 100s of conversation starters in-app.
💡 Try-it-tomorrow-tip: If you’re the direct report in a one-on-one meeting, take over ownership of the meeting agenda. This includes holding your manager accountable for what they commit to.
Whether you’re a manager or a direct report, here are some examples of questions to add to your one-on-one meeting agenda:
Skip-level meetings connect employees with leadership — an important opportunity for both parties.
Skip-level meetings are a great chance for the team to empathize with leaders and vice versa. This is especially true on a remote team when there may not be as much visibility day-to-day.
For employees skip levels are an opportunity to ask as many questions as you can about things you don’t know. Use this time to gain more insight into your company.
For leaders this is a fact-finding mission. According to the iceberg of ignorance theory, executives only see 4% of the problems that exist within an organization. Employees, on the other hand, see it all. Skip level meetings are a time to lower the waterline and expose some problems leaders may not know about.
Skip levels are also a great way to uncover if there’s any broken telephone going on. Think about it: most of the time you’re communicating directly with your manager or team member and the messages get passed on. This is an opportunity to speak directly with the source to get a better understanding of any potential miscommunications.
💡 Try-it-tomorrow tip: You likely aren’t already having skip-level meetings. Try booking one. If it’s coming out of nowhere, make sure you explain it! Don’t just put 30 minutes in someone’s calendar — that’ll freak them out. Communicate the purpose of the meeting to avoid sounding off alarms.
Here are some examples of questions to add to your skip-level meeting agenda:
There’s immense value in lateral 1:1s with peers, but a lot of people aren’t having them. Here’s an overview of why you may want to consider meeting with your colleagues more regularly.
One-on-ones with your peers allow you to connect with a whole new network of people who are potentially going through the same challenges as you are. Open up communication lines and put your brains together to tackle common issues. They may have figured out things that you haven’t yet— like how to navigate office politics or work with a difficult manager.
Peer-to-peer meetings also lessen finger-pointing. It’s easy to put the blame for a project gone wrong onto another team. But, if you’re connecting with your peers, you can better understand blockers and limitations and have greater context to decisions being made on their team. This will increase empathy and improve cross-functional collaboration.
💡Try-it-tomorrow-tip: Prioritize. You likely have a lot of peers, so don’t over-commit to meeting with all of them regularly. Start by meeting with those who are closest to you in the business. It’s okay to meet with those further away from you less frequently.
Here are some examples of questions to add to your peer-to-peer meeting agenda:
If these 4 types of one-on-ones aren’t already in your calendar, now’s the time to add them!
By taking the time to meet with your direct reports, manager, senior leadership and peers you’ll gain a new level of visibility and understanding of your organization as a whole and build empathy and trust with the people you work with every day.
Interested in learning more about the benefits of these one-on-ones from Brennan and Jocelyn themselves? Check out the webinar here:
You made it to the end of this article! Here are some things you can do now:
helps managers run better
Meetings edit_calendar
,
hit their
Goals flag
,
and share better
Performance feedback insights
, faster.