I was recently involved in an interesting discussion on the best tools to use for 121 sessions. The focus was around recording the actions so that you could follow up with the employee. There were a lot of recommendations and a plethora of different SaaS offerings were discussed.
The thought that kept going through my mind was “why are you so keen to write down all of the actions?” Don’t get me wrong I have spent a lot of time writing down all of the actions I have “agreed” with a direct report. There is no problem that I have not tried to resolve with the use of a spreadsheet and a data filter.
About a decade ago I realised something important. No one really did the actions, and if they did it was only for a short period. It became a source of anxiety for both parties. Have you spotted the obvious howler on my behalf yet?
This article is for people that have direct reports and want to improve their 121s, it is based on my experience and what I think really matters.
What is the purpose of your 121?
The epiphany hit about 15 years ago, it took a while as I had taken a very particular view of my role as a manager. It took that long to understand the difference between managing and leading.
In my post about Motivation at work, I outline the context of my approach, that people within business and especially commercial functions have their own personal motivation. The key role of a leader is to connect the person to how they can achieve their goals in a work environment.
I believe that you cannot motivate a person directly, but you can help them find their own motivation and support them in the context of work. To do this a trust based culture is required for employees to feel safe and open to communication and collaboration. There is a lot of research that suggests that a culture of trust leads to motivation at work and subsequently performance.
An example of which can be found here, from HBR, that outlines the science and also the measurable outputs of doing so.
So if a trust led culture is what drives motivation, what was I doing in my 121 sessions with people? I was doing the opposite of what they needed. I was taking them away from their work and not trusting them to make decisions. Subconsciously I was telling them what to do, in excruciating detail.
When I eventually realised what was happening, I changed my approach. The 121 sessions I now started to run were about the person, building trust together and whether they could align their actions with the strategy and how I could help them.
Earn their trust
When was the last time your boss called you just before your 121 and said that she was too busy and if you could skip it this week? How did you feel? Now think about how many times you have done that to your direct reports and imagine how they feel?
My challenge to you is to turn up to the next ten 121 sessions you have with your staff. If you are feeling really confident check back on your attendance for the last 10. Trust is built by you making sure that you are prioritising them. Those first 10 sessions are about building trust, without it, you are just another boss.
Help the person, not just the employee
A well motivated, engaged person will identify the actions they need to take in order to meet their objectives. By creating a trusting relationship you can have discussion on what is missing. Your role is to ensure that you help your employee in thinking about why and how they need to operate and for them to articulate what they are going to do.
At the core of a person’s motivation is how their labour benefits them. By helping make the connections between these 2 elements of their life you can connect not just their work persona, you are connecting with the whole person.
If your team member identifies the actions they need to take, they are much more likely to actually do them. I have lost count of the number of times I have come away from a 121 with a boss with 10+ actions. My personal record was 36 in one meeting. I can tell you that I did not feel like I was being helped or achieving my goals following that discussion. I felt overwhelmed and unheard, and ultimately led to my departure.
Strategy at the heart of everything
It is easy for you to focus on the tasks of your team, easy to think about outputs and results alone. However a critical factor of 121 sessions is to align everyone with the strategy. All too often company strategy is something that happens in the executive team.
If the teams across the company are not aligned to the strategy then it is likely that the outcomes of the company are out of kilter with its intentions. Whether you have the right strategy is a good topic for another article (paper, book, series of books). For the purpose of this one, let us say you do have one that the company can recognise. The most effective teams will be the ones that deliver it.
Inside every level of the company the Strategy needs to be discussed, so that it is normalised as an everyday activity. In this way the company can learn from the whole team how the strategy is being delivered, and what adjustments need to be made.
Running 121 sessions
There are a lot of articles on running a 121, much talk of SMART objectives, and the amount of time each session should take. You can google for this information and all of it has some relevance. My experience suggests that there are two broad types of 121:
- Frontline manager and their individual contributors
- Manager of managers
Each of these has different requirements and will require the manager to adopt a slightly different role.
Frontline manager and their individual contributors (IC)
The single largest contributor to the motivation of the individual is how they feel about their manager. This is reflected across all of the research in this area, and probably your own engagement surveys. The individual contributor is where the real work of your company is done and it is the furthest point away from the executive team, therefore the most likely part of the company that will be misaligned from the strategy.
Purpose
Increase the effectiveness of an individual contributor in line with the company strategy
Outcomes
Alignment of IC activity with Strategy
Clear single metric identified against which success is measured
Prioritisation of time and activities created by the employee
Trusting relationship with open communication
Your Behaviour and Approach
Attendance as a priority
Asking questions to learn more about their role and understand their challenges
Create a space that enables them to come to their own conclusions and plans
3 Key Questions
What are the priorities for this role that move the company strategy forward?
How can we improve your role to be more aligned with the strategy?
What can I do to help you in terms of support, resources or development?
By helping an individual contributor to align their role with the strategy you are increasing their effectiveness. The likelihood is that this is not something that they are used to, and the first few sessions will be a bit tricky until they trust you and understand fully what you are trying to achieve. However, they need to reach this understanding and then feel like they can do something about it.
The individual is far more likely to know what needs to happen than you are (don’t you just hate those bosses who think they can do everyone’s job better). By helping them understand their role in the execution of the strategy you are helping them feel more connected with the company and a valued member of the team.
Manager of Managers
For the purposes of this discussion these are leaders who manage an entire department. E.g. VP of Sales, VP of Marketing. Their focus will be to bring together the whole department to deliver a single outcome, but they will also be responsible for integrating that department with the adjacent teams. They are closer to the Strategy definition and indeed may well have had an important role to play in its creation. Therefore, it is vital that they completely understand and are engaged with the company strategy so that they can deliver it.
Purpose
Increase the effectiveness of a department inline with the company strategy
Outcomes
Alignment of the Leader to the Strategy and best practice
Strategy Execution plan for department created and prioritised by Leader
Resourcing & People plan for the department identified by Leader
Alignment with other departments to deliver the strategy
Your Behaviour and Approach
Attendance as a priority, always make the time for them
Coaching and questioning leading to the ownership and accountability by Manager
Provider of resources, support and problem solving
3 Key Questions
How does the activity of your department lead to the delivery of the strategy?
What have you learned and how will it inform your plans going forward?
How are you aligning with the other departments in this company?
Department leaders being aligned to the company strategy is critical as they are multipliers of behaviour across all of the staff in that team. In my experience this alignment is not always in place. It is the responsibility of the Executive to ensure that this happens.
Final Thoughts
Inside your company there are many decisions to be made, and you can’t make all of them. One of the most effective ways you can ensure that alignment occurs across your company is through the use of 121 sessions. Regardless of the level, you are trying to ensure that people understand this and are doing what they can do to improve. Your role is to support them and resource them effectively.
A failure to do so will be seen by all of the employees as the company being misaligned and inauthentic. Over time they will become disillusioned and start to deliver what they believe to be the right results. Left unchecked a strategic drift emerges. Or worse, the real problems that will affect you will not be brought to light so that they can be addressed.
By creating a culture of trust and personal responsibility you can empower them to deliver on the strategy. Very few companies get their strategy right and stick to it forever, there will be numerous tiny adjustments that are needed until you land on the right one. The information you need to do this is already available in the minds of your team.
The role of the manager is to unleash the potential inside each person in the company in line with the company strategy, rather than to tell employees what needs to be done.
The NOT so secret CRO 
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