046 - Revolutionize Your Team Dynamics with Game-Changing One-on-Ones!

046 - Revolutionize Your Team Dynamics with Game-Changing One-on-Ones!

(00:00)
Welcome to this episode of Women Powering Ecommerce. Join me every Tuesday as I take you behind the scenes of my journey as a female e-commerce entrepreneur. Together, we'll explore the highs, the lows, inspiring you to take action and achieve your own business goals. So let's get started.

(00:32)
Are you doing one-on-ones with your team? I for a long time knew it was probably somewhat important, but I honestly didn't feel like it was very important. So I wanna talk about why I decided to implement regular one-on-ones with my team and also talk about the importance of it in what I'm learning.

While I'm implementing it because it's still not done yet, it's not even going through the whole team, but I thought, hey, let's do this like live, capture this right now. And maybe in a few weeks or months, I can update you on how it's been going for me. So a little background maybe of how the idea of implementing the one-on-ones came to mind. So.

When you have a very small team, I think that naturally you'll do those one-on-ones. You'll chat with your team members, you'll ask how they're doing, you'll very naturally see how they're performing and then you'll help them grow, which I think that's why for a long time I did not see the necessity of doing one-on-ones because I was probably already doing them. Not in a very structured way, but still.

it was almost pretty much done. But then what happens is that your team grows. And I was, and as the team grew, I was witnessing communication gaps in the team. So the more we grew, the more it was becoming challenging to keep track of everyone. And that's what I'm actually experiencing right now. So that's why in the last six months or so, I told myself I have to do something with this because if we're gonna...

going to continue to grow, eventually we're going to lose some really important things here. I'm not talking about the people, but I mean beautiful opportunities to help our team members grow and help them maybe with their challenges or just know how they're doing on a personal level. I think that's very important. And I personally felt disconnected from my team's journeys and goals lately. So...

(02:48)
I thought, okay, we have to do something about this. I realized that my employees may have also some unexpressed concerns. And I think the best way to go with those is just address them as soon as they start and not wait for your employees or team members to come to you and express those concerns. If you can do it proactively, then great. They often have really good ideas, really good ideas, and there's just not the time and place.

There's not a place to discuss those because if you're just doing larger group meetings, those can be overlooked because there is not enough time to talk about everyone's ideas or things they saw. Or just because they don't have, they don't feel comfortable sharing that in front of a large group. So having that one on one setting is really, I think, wonderful to create that atmosphere of making sure they feel heard, they feel seen.

That they must know that they are accountable and we see them, we wanna make sure they're productive and that there is a place to share whatever they have on their mind or any ideas, concerns, and things like that. But I'm not gonna lie, my current struggle is that when you don't have those in place and you wanna implement something as big as one-on-ones, it's not big, I don't feel it's big, but... to some people, it is a change. So it will look big and there will be that initial resistance and hesitations from team members about the new format that you wanna implement. It's new and we're just all learning together. And making time, I think the biggest challenge is not the fact that we want to implement one-on-ones, it's just the time. Like we already have a packed schedule. So like...

When are you gonna find time to focus on those meetings? And we wanna do them twice a month, 30 minutes each. So, I mean, a lot of the team members, they have already more that they can handle. So I fully understand that part of, if they are a little bit resistant to it. However, what I learned is that from the few tasks that we've run,

(05:11)
with a few team members in the past couple of months, and now starting to implement those in the organization throughout the whole organization, there are so many benefits. And the time you make and take for those one-on-ones will actually help you reach your goals faster, be even more productive, have a better quality of life at work, and even more so. For now, honestly, I'm loving it. I'm loving it, yes.

It's a change, yes, it takes more time, but in the end, it's really, really beneficial. I'm already seeing the benefits. And a few of the benefits concretely of what I've been seeing for those regular check-ins is that you get greater clarity about your team members, individual challenges and successes. It really, it's a good time, yes, to talk about what's bothering them maybe.

What they're having trouble with, but sometimes they don't even have the time to share what's been going well for them, what they're proud of. So it's a great place for that. I personally also love learning about everyone's goals, short term and long term, because in that one-on-one, in our structure, I'll share it later what we do, but we have everyone share their goals, personal, professional, even financial if they're comfortable with it, anything that we can help them with.

It just energizes me and I just want to help and that's great. And like I said before, it helps you identify potential risks and problems before they escalate. So I think that's worth every minute that you can spend with that person in your one on one. Now, another benefit is I find that when you have a set structure to sit down and talk, it really empowers both the...

The direct report who'll do the one-on-one meeting, but the team member as well. So, and the way we structure those meetings for now, look, it might change in the future, but for now it feels like it's working really well. We start off by sharing, and it's that one person we're doing the one-on-one with, they share their wins. We don't both share our wins, we can, but our focus is on that one individual. So they share their wins. Then we talk about actions. What actions have they taken?

(07:37)
since the last one on one. Usually we try to end every one on one with an action plan, a few action items they have to work on. So did they do them? How did they go? If it wasn't done, did they come across a roadblock? Something like that. Then we take a look at their metrics. Usually, I mean, metrics, you can get lost in those very quickly, but we try to stick to at least one metric.

It seems very simple, but like, what's your North Star metric in your role that we can measure every time we do a one-on-one meeting? So that's what we work on, and for now, it's been great. And I realized doing this, like, it's very easy to find one metric for yourself, people, or your marketing, but when it comes to someone doing accounting or executive assistant, it's a little bit more trickier.

really working hard to make sure everyone has their at least one metric we measure them on every single one-on-one. Now another thing we do is just any updates and ideas they want to share. We leave a place and space for that and then we look into their goals. So what I had them do prior to starting the one-on-ones is just list their personal goals, professional goals, and financial

So for the next year, three years and five years. It's not mandatory to complete everything, but whatever they share, the more they share, the more they're gonna get out of it because it creates accountability. We can motivate them. We can see if we can provide any tools, help, to help them reach their goals. So it's really, really fun. And we just follow up on those goals every time we do it one-on-one. And honestly, up till now, I think that's the thing I'm most excited about.

I just, it's to see everyone grow and reach whatever they set themselves to. And then we leave some time for feedback. So usually it's the team leader that will run those one-on-ones. So for their own department team members. So it's just a good time to make sure we remember to give them feedback, positive or constructive. So it gives a comprehensive view of the individual's progress and honestly, I'm loving it.

(10:03)
Another benefit I've seen is honestly the power of listening. So the positive impact on morality when a team member feels genuinely heard is beautiful. And I say genuinely, you have to make sure, and I do my best. When I come to a one-on-one, my number one goal is to really take a few minutes before and make sure I'm giving everything I can.

to make it as authentic, and I really wanna give that personal interest because they deserve it, they really deserve it. So if they feel that being genuine and authentic, then I think in the end, it will be great. If you don't feel that or you're trying to really rush through the meeting, I mean, those things can be, I think you can feel those things. So for me, it's important to make sure I'm in the right state before I do those meetings to make sure that...

I try to have the best listening ear as possible. And yeah, so that's it. And then another thing that I love is feedback. Feedback is a great growth tool for the individual. So when you deliver feedback constructively, it can be a very powerful motivator. So at least, and they know what they're doing well. So they can just push more towards that direction.

And the positive changes I witnessed in team members after receiving and acting on feedback is really good. So, and sometimes we just tend to forget to give feedback. So it's not because we don't want to, it's just everything goes by super fast in a day, in a week, in a month. So making sure we provide that constructive or positive feedback is very important. Another thing I found

and I'm realizing now is that it helps everyone be aligned even more with the company goals. And I find that these sessions have helped in ensuring that individual goals of everyone align with the broader company vision. And I really love this one because it can be a tough one. Having everyone make sure that their goals are aligned with the company,

(12:23)
That way we kind of follow up, make sure everyone is heading in the right direction. So yeah, the synergy it creates when everyone is on the same page and heading in the same direction is wonderful. I feel like we had that before, but more on a higher level, but my goal is to really bring that down to every single individual in the company as much as possible. And I feel like these one-on-ones will allow for that.

And maybe one last thing is that it just also sets an environment to for continuous improvement. So the nature of those meetings, we're always looking to refine and improve in general. And when you realize that growth is a continuous journey, it's not a destination, it's not somewhere that we will only be happy when we get there. I feel like it just.

allows me to enjoy everyone's journey and be a part of it. And we get to share that with them. And it's great. And to see that improvement week after week, month after month, it's just, for me it's a gift. And it's a really gift to see that. So I'm really excited to see how things will turn up in the next couple of weeks and months, because like I said, we're just implementing it. It's going well. And

When I say we're implementing, it's just we're doing it mostly with the, I'm doing it with the team leaders and now they're just starting to do it with their teams as well. But once it'll be part of our habits, I think it will have a very, very positive impact overall over the whole organization. So if you like this podcast episode, take a moment to rate, share, subscribe to the podcast. And again, I value your support in allowing me to help more women entrepreneurs in the e-commerce business.