How to Facilitate Great “One-On-One” Supervisory Meetings

January 18, 2012

Meeting with your staffers on an individual basis to discuss their performance is an important part of being a supervisor and a leader. However, these meetings do not only have to be a means to critique your employees from an evaluation standpoint. “One-on-one” meetings can foster a rewarding mentoring relationship as well as a means by which to engage your staffers as a true partner in meeting the mission and vision of your organization.

Here are a few tips that I have found helpful in facilitating great “one-on-one” supervisory meetings:

1. Set the Parameters for Meeting Participation – As a part of the hiring process and during staff training, set the parameters for what is expected during one-on-one supervisory meetings. By setting the tone that these meetings are important and participatory in nature, your staffers will embody this as part of the team’s culture and act accordingly. Tell them that they should come prepared with feedback, questions, and suggestions for making your organization better. As I tell my own staff, I don’t want to hear complaining for complaining’s sake; if there’s a better way to do something, I want a suggestion, solution, or plan of action.

2. Always Keep Your Appointments with Your Staffers – This seems like common sense, but it is very easy to get sidetracked by other important meetings and activities and either forgot or attempt to reschedule your supervisory meetings. By making this time important, you are symbolically demonstrating that these meetings and, more importantly, your staffers are crucial to you and your team’s success.

3. Purposely Seek Out Feedback to Enact Change - Allowing for and seeking out honest feedback from your employees is a great way to keep your employees engaged in continuous improvement conversations. People take a part in what they help create so allow them to help create team goals, policies, and practices during regularly scheduled supervisory meetings. Be a servant leader and ask them how you can better help them in their position and if they need any particular type of resource or support so that they can be more effective.

4. Have an “Activity” Planned if There is Nothing to Talk About – If there is nothing of note to discuss, do not simply cancel the meeting. Utilize the opportunity to connect with and mentor your staffers. One-on-one meetings can be used for personal development and skills building. Have a “bag of tricks” developed that you can utilize quickly and easily if you’re stuck in one of these “I-have-nothing-to-talk-about” situations. Skills building activities can include role playing and case scenarios related to topics pertaining to your staffers’ positions. Using this time for brainstorming can also create productive ideas for the entire team.

One such example of a “one-on-one” activity is the Supervisory Discussion Cards activity developed by Student Life Consultants. These handy cards contain multiple questions that are conversation starters related to personal development and teamwork. Each set of 25 double-sided cards contains 50 questions and comes complete with a four-page PDF activity handout that is downloaded immediately upon purchase.

*** Use the SLG0112 code to receive 20% off of your entire order. ***

This discount is available only until Friday, January 27, 2011.

What are some practices that you use with your employees to facilitate great “one-on-one” supervisory meetings? What advice can you offer to your colleagues related to what works and does not work for “one-on-one” supervisory meetings?

Leave a Comment » | Leadership, Mentoring, Supervision | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by studentlifeguru

10 Tips for Mentoring & Supervising a “Know-It-All”

September 5, 2011

A “know-it-all” is someone who thinks they are above your leadership and presumes to know everything about the workings of your organization. These individuals may not necessarily be disrespectful or a problem team member, but can keep the team from reaching its full potential as they may feel they have nothing left to learn when, in fact, they have much more they could accomplish. Below are ten strategies for mentoring and supervising a “know-it-all.”

  1. Remain humble and patient – As the leader, you need to remain humble and patient despite the personalities of the people on your team. It goes without saying that you are in charge so you do not always have to reaffirm this. Doing so repeatedly will undoubtedly create discord and unneeded conflicts. Be a leader; do not simply say you are one. Have patience with those who may think they have learned everything there is to know about your organization so you can help them to accomplish more for the team.
  2. Assign extremely challenging tasks – The simplest way to get a complainer or know-it-all to put their money where their mouth is is by assigning challenging tasks. This is not meant to be done to put them in their place or to make a fool out of them, but to push them to further develop their knowledge and skills. If you take the stand that this individual cannot learn anymore, they will remain stagnant. It is your job as a leader to set high expectations and challenges for them.
  3. Involve them in new areas – Expand their skill set by getting them involved in other areas in which they normally do not participate. This will allow them to have new experiences within your organization and further develop their skills.
  4. Allow them to fail – Learning from failure and making mistakes is an excellent opportunity for new understanding. Obviously you do not want to allow failure for large monetary expenditures or decisions related to life & safety issues, but purposely building room in for failure can prove helpful for staff development and continuous improvement.
  5. Increased levels of responsibility – One reason why individuals may feel that they know  it all is because they have not been challenged enough with new and more challenging responsibilities. Create projects purposely for them to allow them to stretch their wings while also being challenged.
  6. Use them as your own resource to develop their confidence Rely upon them for their expertise in areas that they do in fact excel in order to boost their confidence. While this may seem counter-intuitive, particularly with those individuals who can be problematic, one reason they may be a “know-it-all” is because they actually suffer from low self-esteem. Developing their confidence may prove helpful in easing their persistence in claiming to know everything.
  7. Role model mentoring behaviors & expect them to do so as well – Team members will tend to emulate the behaviors of those that inspire them and obtain positive team-wide results. Being a role model for your team and actually illustrating behaviors of what you expect from everyone will go a long way for those who think they have accomplished everything.
  8. Don’t tell me, show me! Have them demonstrate their skills, especially if they contend that they know how to solve various problems. This is not meant to be a battle of wills, but to push them further to reach their potential. Give them the resources and tools needed to accomplish the job, and allow them to do so.
  9. Establish trust by including them in confidential and sensitive information – Along with involving individuals in new areas and increasing their levels of responsibilities, you can establish trust with them by including them in discussions they may not have been privy to previously. Obviously you want to set explicit expectations regarding confidentiality.
  10. Counsel them out of the position – Lastly, it may be appropriate to counsel an individual out of their position, particularly if there really are no new challenges or responsibilities for them to tackle. Are you able to promote them to a new position within the organization? Are there other positions outside of the organization that you could recommend for them? Part of the mentoring process is to help recommend new opportunities for your team members so that they can grow as leaders even if that means those opportunities are outside of your organization.

2 Comments | Leadership, Supervision | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by studentlifeguru

8 Steps in Administering a Peer Mentoring Program

October 31, 2010
New college students often feel overwhelmed and intimidated, especially at large schools. University-wide mentoring programs are a great way to help students get acclimated to their new environment. A mentor can show freshman and transfer students where their classes are, where to get meals, where to go for academic help, and can help them utilize other resources on campus. However, matching a mentor and protege (as we call new students and transfers) is not a simple or quick process. Here are eight steps our university uses in order to administer and nuture the mentoring relationship:
 
1. Applying to be a mentor:
All of our mentors first turn in an application to the mentoring office. The application asks for some personal information (address, phone number, e-mail, etc.), the mentors major and GPA (a certain GPA is required to be a mentor), their hobbies, the activities they are involved in on campus, and it also asks questions about how often the mentor wants to contact the protege. Many mentors are extremely busy and only have time to help the new students about once a month. That’s fine because the mentors are unpaid volunteers; we can’t force them to do anything. Also, once new students feel comfortable, once a month seems to be sufficient for many of them.
 
2. Requesting a mentor:
While every new student CAN have a mentor, none of them HAVE to have one. In order to have a mentor, the new student needs to fill out a request form, which asks for the same information as the mentor application (with the exception of the students’ GPA). The mentor requesting process occurs either at their orientation or once they get to school in the fall.  
 
3. Matching mentors and proteges:
Throughout the summer, the mentoring directors spend countless hours going through each application in order to match students. They usually match them based on major and school activities. This is because most majors have specific requirements and deadlines that only someone else in the major would be able to help the new students with.  However, some new students have special requests such as gender, race, sexual orientation, hometown, or amount of contact wanted.  
 
4. Starting the mentor/protege relationship:
Once a mentor and protege are matched, the protege’s information is emailed to the mentor. The mentor then contacts the protege (this is usually sometime in July) and asks if they have any questions about placement tests, roommates, living situation, meal plans, etc. From this point until school starts, the mentor usually contacts the protege about once a week. The proteges are nervous and excited and often have tons of questions! From a mentor standpoint, it’s really fun to see how excited the new students are!  In many instances, new students will express their concerns with their mentors. That’s exactly why we’re here for them! They stress about not getting along with a roommate, how to study for their first tests, and just about anything else that may be of concern for them. Mentors are seasoned college students and can guide the proteges to helpful resources.
 
5. Mentoring during the proteges’ first semester:
After about three weeks, the proteges start to find their niche on campus. They have less questions and begin to try to find things out on their own. Mentors usually back off a little bit and let the proteges become independent. However, we still contact the proteges about every 10 – 14 days to see how things are going with classes, roommates, etc. One of the most stressful times of the students’ first semester is scheduling for the spring semester. Mentors are a great resource for that because they have done this multiple times before.
 
6. Mentoring during the proteges’ second semester:
At this point, most of the proteges are on their own and don’t need much help. The mentoring office still sends out weekly emails with helpful campus information and resources. Mentors and Peer Mentoring Coordinators still contact the proteges to see how things are progressing with their classes. Once the school year ends, the mentor is no longer responsible for answering the proteges’ questions. However, most mentors and proteges remain friends throughout their time at college. For most proteges, their mentor was their “first friend,” and they continue their relationship outside of the program. 
 
7. Peer Mentoring Coordinators:
As mentioned previously, the mentoring department has “Peer Mentoring Coordinators.” These individuals are student workers that are responsible for facilitating the relationship between the mentors and proteges. They send out the weekly emails and about every two weeks they contact either the mentor or the protege to get their prospective on the relationship. They ask if the mentor has contacted the protege (to make sure that the relationship has been established), if they have met in person, and if the mentor is helpful. If the mentor and protege give the same report, we assume everything is working out and check in less frequently. If the mentor and protege give conflicting information, we try to work out the issue. If the issue cannot be resolved, we reassign a new mentor for the protege.  
 
8. Role Modeling and Personal Conduct:
As a mentor, it is important to lead by example. In college, new students pay close attention to the actions of older students. It is important to be mindful of your comments as well as your actions. Using profane language or gossiping about people is a bad example to set for new students.  It is also inappropriate to break the law by consuming illegal substances or behaving in an out of control manner. These are all inappropriate behaviors that we do not want to pass on to new students. While we encourage the new students to get involved on campus and do fun things, we also encourage all of the university students to make sound decisions. Good mentors with positive attitudes and behaviors are a vital aspect of university settings.
 
This program is intended for freshmen and transfer students.  It is all about them and what they need to have a successful first year at school. In addition, mentoring is a rewarding activity for older students. Becoming a mentor was important to me so that I could help new students, and I’d encourage you to do the same.
 
Hayley Simpson is from Pittsburgh, PA and is a senior Sport Management major at California University of PA.  She worked in the university’s athletic department for about two years and then decided to work in the mentoring department as a Peer Mentoring Coordinator.  She was also a volunteer mentor for two years.  She is still involved with the athletic department as well as the Sports Management Club. You can follow Hayley on Twitter @Hay2422 or email her at SIM0489@calu.edu.
 

Leave a Comment » | Leadership, Mentoring | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by studentlifeguru

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 801 other followers