Do you ever feel underwater, unable to keep track of what everyone is doing and constantly feeling like you're being pulled in a 100 different directions? Management and parenthood have a lot in common!
Your team members want your input on their work, they want your advice and they want your feedback. You, in all likelihood, want status updates, want to share context, want to share feedback with them, check in on how they're doing and also want to delegate work to them. Unfortunately, slack messages or 5 minutes after a meeting aren't always enough for these conversations and over time you'll find distance grows as does the likelihood of misunderstandings.
We recommend doing 1:1s with your team on a weekly basis, even if just for 30 minutes. You'd be surprised at how much content there is to cover in these meetings.
Step 1: Setup a weekly 30 minute chat with your reports
Step 2: Create a 1:1 document that's linked to the calendar invite
Step 3: Ask your report to update this document before you meet with topics in order of priority. Ensure you update this document as well with anything on your mind.
Step 4: List the following categories to help them become more structured in their updates and to avoid unnecessary information.
Decisions & feedback required
Upcoming meetings
Key Status Updates
Step 5: Record agreed next steps in this document
Voila, a structured 30 minute meeting will give you back hours of boomerang time (i.e. back and forth slack messages followed by a frustrated call), a clearer head and an easily accessible written record of what you agreed on to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.
P.S. If you aren't using a similar document with your manager for 1:1s, it may be time to start!