9 min
The Researched Power of 1 on 1 Check Ins My Business On Purpose
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- Management
Hey! Ever feel disconnected from your team? Either you don't feel like you're getting them, or they don't feel like they're getting you, or vice versa.
One of the biggest issues that we see when we're working with business owners, or frankly, just when we're working with people, we're human beings. Whereas tasks don't talk back. There's no emotion there. When we're dealing with people, ourselves. We've got emotions, we've got variations. Things happen in our lives, and it causes us to do different things.
And for years, we at Business On Purpose have been pushing the 1 on 1 Check In. And with this check in, a variety of different elements can come out through these discussions. And one of the biggest pieces of pushback we'll get is this one piece that says, “Yeah, but Scott, we talk all day long, like, we don't need to do this. We're always talking. We're texting, we're talking on the phone. We're looking at different things.”
I ran across a book, and it helped to understand this hunch that we had that individual, 1 on 1, undistracted check ins could be an incredibly powerful tool, not only for leadership, but effective. Just day to day management. So it's in the book called “The Effective Manager”, and it's written by Mark Horstman, Kate Braun, and Sarah Sentes. And you can find it anywhere. Just look it online. The Effective Manager.
What I really like about the book is they actually did statistical research around managerial status and a variety of tools that they leveraged in order to find growth, both in managers and more often in people. And so as it comes to small business, we can learn a lot from this. And so I want you to take this excuse that we get a lot. “Yeah, but Scott, we talk all day long”, and I want you to think about this.
What they found in the book is that the average length of time that managers talked in this what we call non necessary meeting with the directs, that, quote, they talk to all day long. 28 minutes. That's it. 28 minutes. So, when you say that you talk all day long with your team, what you really mean is we spent about 28 minutes together, but it's 30 seconds here, a minute and a half there, three minutes there.
Is that how you want to build a relationship and a connection? Is that how you would build a relationship with the people that you love outside of work, your spouse, your kids? No. No. We've got to have continuity in what we do. And to allow the demon to roar even more. What I found from Cal Newport was the average length of time that we spend checking email is 5.6 hours.
So, this is what the normal week looks like. Most likely, this is what your week looks like. 28 minutes talking all day long, or the average day, 5.68 hours of chat checking email. And if we're really honest, we spend the remaining two-ish hours putting out fires. When do we ever get to work on the business? When do we ever get to lead? Because we're not leading when we're talking all day long. We're not leading when we're checking email. And we're certainly not leading when we're putting out fires.
So, we reoriented to the day and thought about, what is an RPM day look like? You might be thinking, what is RPM? Repetition, Predictability, and Meaning. So, we don't void repetition and predictability out and leave it meaningless? No, we want to bring meaning into that. How do we do that?
What if you replaced your talking all day long with a 1 on 1 check in with your direct reports? What if you replaced 5.6 hours of checking email and replaced it with following your CEO owner scorecard, or your job role and your weekly schedule? What if you replaced putting out fires and instead started to work ON the business, articulating vision, mission values, recasting all of that, building out fiscal dashboards, subdividing bank accounts, long term planning, goal setting, past, present, future financials, all the things that we talk about at Business On Purpose.
What if you replaced putting ou
Hey! Ever feel disconnected from your team? Either you don't feel like you're getting them, or they don't feel like they're getting you, or vice versa.
One of the biggest issues that we see when we're working with business owners, or frankly, just when we're working with people, we're human beings. Whereas tasks don't talk back. There's no emotion there. When we're dealing with people, ourselves. We've got emotions, we've got variations. Things happen in our lives, and it causes us to do different things.
And for years, we at Business On Purpose have been pushing the 1 on 1 Check In. And with this check in, a variety of different elements can come out through these discussions. And one of the biggest pieces of pushback we'll get is this one piece that says, “Yeah, but Scott, we talk all day long, like, we don't need to do this. We're always talking. We're texting, we're talking on the phone. We're looking at different things.”
I ran across a book, and it helped to understand this hunch that we had that individual, 1 on 1, undistracted check ins could be an incredibly powerful tool, not only for leadership, but effective. Just day to day management. So it's in the book called “The Effective Manager”, and it's written by Mark Horstman, Kate Braun, and Sarah Sentes. And you can find it anywhere. Just look it online. The Effective Manager.
What I really like about the book is they actually did statistical research around managerial status and a variety of tools that they leveraged in order to find growth, both in managers and more often in people. And so as it comes to small business, we can learn a lot from this. And so I want you to take this excuse that we get a lot. “Yeah, but Scott, we talk all day long”, and I want you to think about this.
What they found in the book is that the average length of time that managers talked in this what we call non necessary meeting with the directs, that, quote, they talk to all day long. 28 minutes. That's it. 28 minutes. So, when you say that you talk all day long with your team, what you really mean is we spent about 28 minutes together, but it's 30 seconds here, a minute and a half there, three minutes there.
Is that how you want to build a relationship and a connection? Is that how you would build a relationship with the people that you love outside of work, your spouse, your kids? No. No. We've got to have continuity in what we do. And to allow the demon to roar even more. What I found from Cal Newport was the average length of time that we spend checking email is 5.6 hours.
So, this is what the normal week looks like. Most likely, this is what your week looks like. 28 minutes talking all day long, or the average day, 5.68 hours of chat checking email. And if we're really honest, we spend the remaining two-ish hours putting out fires. When do we ever get to work on the business? When do we ever get to lead? Because we're not leading when we're talking all day long. We're not leading when we're checking email. And we're certainly not leading when we're putting out fires.
So, we reoriented to the day and thought about, what is an RPM day look like? You might be thinking, what is RPM? Repetition, Predictability, and Meaning. So, we don't void repetition and predictability out and leave it meaningless? No, we want to bring meaning into that. How do we do that?
What if you replaced your talking all day long with a 1 on 1 check in with your direct reports? What if you replaced 5.6 hours of checking email and replaced it with following your CEO owner scorecard, or your job role and your weekly schedule? What if you replaced putting out fires and instead started to work ON the business, articulating vision, mission values, recasting all of that, building out fiscal dashboards, subdividing bank accounts, long term planning, goal setting, past, present, future financials, all the things that we talk about at Business On Purpose.
What if you replaced putting ou
9 min