In this week's newsletter

• Hidden costs of depending too much on 1:1s
• Warm-up and check-out questions you can use today
• Tactical starter agenda: leading an early-stage decision-making meeting
• Relevant reads and listens
• Your weekly bird break

I was in a meeting with a colleague about an upcoming change. We realized we needed to bring a couple other people into the conversation to get input on the decision.

I already had one-on-ones scheduled with both of them later in the week. I knew everyone’s calendar, including mine, was filled with back-to-back meetings and no one wanted another.

So I said something many a well-meaning leader has said: “Want me to bring this to them in my one-on-ones and let you know next steps over Slack?”

It seemed efficient. I’m a calendar hero!

But I’ve found this approach comes with hidden costs that ultimately consume the time you’re trying to save.

What You Lose When You Go One-by-One

• You create a game of telephone. When you share context separately with each person on different days, the message inevitably shifts. People hear different things, remember different details, and walk away with different understandings.
• Your one-on-ones become unfocused. Instead of being a dedicated, employee-driven space for getting unstuck and growing professionally, they turn into a laundry list of operational updates and decisions.
• You miss the chance to model collaborative problem-solving. Group discussions give your team the opportunity to see how you work through challenges and navigate differing perspectives. And they give your team a chance to engage directly with each other to solve problems.
• You become the bottleneck. When every relationship flows through you, team members develop strong connections with you, but not with each other. Even when you want them to collaborate directly, they lack the shared context and relationships to do so effectively.

A 25-minute meeting with everyone in the same conversation would have saved us what ultimately became weeks of back-and-forth and an eventual future meeting anyway.

Try this: next time you catch yourself about to tackle the same conversation through multiple one-on-ones, pause. Shorten two of those one-on-ones by 15 minutes each and use that 30 minutes for a structured group huddle instead.

Ask yourself

While it may feel like more work and more meetings in the short term, it's a long-term investment in your team's capacity and your bandwidth.
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Ready to bring the group together for decision-making input? See below for a starter agenda for that meeting.

Meeting Minute

​Warm-up question​

Why? Focuses on positive. Builds awareness of accomplishments for you and across the team.

​Check-out question​

If you meet regularly with a group, periodically checking in about the meeting structure keeps things intentional.

Objective Deep Dive

In this rotating feature, I spotlight a specific meeting objective type and how to prepare for and lead it.

This week: Getting input on a decision

Sometimes a decision is too complex or too consequential for one person to make alone. You need perspectives from the people closest to the work and those impacted by the decision. That’s what this meeting is for: to gather the input that leads to a stronger recommendation and build broader awareness of the decision-making process underway.

In this deep dive, I’ll call the person driving the process the recommender*. That’s the person responsible for doing the research, gathering input, and preparing the recommendation. It might be you, or it might be someone on your team you’re asking to own this.

Example: Your organization is considering adopting a new project management tool.

Meeting Objectives:

• The group is aware of the decision underway and the options under consideration
• The group identifies outstanding questions or concerns that need to be resolved before a decision is made
• Everyone leaves clear on what’s being decided, what input is still needed, who makes the final call, and the timeline

Before the meeting, the recommender prepares a summary including

• What decision needs to be made and who will ultimately approve it
• Why it matters (What problem is this solving?What’s the goal?)
• Estimated timeline for making the decision
• A summary of input gathered so far and what’s still needed
• Roles different stakeholders will play in the process (e.g., who needs to agree, whose input is critical, who will roll out the new software, etc.)

During the meeting:

• Recommender shares the above (format: a presentation or time for all to read a memo)
• Recommender asks the group:
  • What have I gotten right so far?
  • What could go wrong?
  • What questions are still unanswered?
• Recommender summarizes and repeats back key themes from the discussion

Close the meeting by committing to:

• Clear next steps and owners for gathering remaining input
• A timeline for when the recommendation will be presented for a final decision
• A plan to follow up with the group once the decision is final

*Recommender is language from Bain & Company’s RAPID decision-making framework. Adjust to match terms used in your organization.

Relevant reads and listens