All Officers

5. One-on-One Meetings

Another tip from Lance Miller is to have one-on-one officer meetings, similar to what several companies do with supervisors and employees. This will cover some of the basics about doing this.

Ideally, a one-on-one meeting takes about 30 minutes: 10 minutes for them, 10 minutes for you, and 10 minutes for whatever else. Some very good instruction comes from the Manager Tools podcast for those that want to go in-depth about the topic. These meetings should be convened between the president and the officer (or if not available, a member of their committee). These can be done after a meeting, over the phone, or whatever method works for both parties.

While one-on-ones should cover the officer's responsibilities, if concerns about the club in general comes up, the one-on-one is a good place to address it. Both parties do need some preparation to make them effective; the officer should be up to speed on their office metrics (e.g. the VPM should know how many guests have attended in the last month and if they've been followed up with and how many members have joined or left), and the president should know what expectations and initiatives they have for the officer, as well as what was discussed previously.

It's important to note that what's said in a one-on-one should be kept private unless otherwise explicitly agreed upon. The officer should make notes of any to dos with related deadlines, and the president should make their own follow up items to verify these to dos are getting done. Products like OneNote or EverNote are useful for this. 

Other topics at one-on-ones can be roadblocks, question & answer (or mentoring), district happenings, and their committees. If you're a new president, keep in mind that you aren't always the one to find the answer to the question; more often than not you want to coach the officer on how to find information so they can answer their own questions. If neither of you can figure an issue out, put the issue or question into a parking lot in your notes, and follow up with the appropriate people - this could be your area director, for example. 

One-on-one topics can include:

• DCP progress (not really applicable to the SAA)
• Roles & responsibilities-related tasks and projects
• Their committee (for VPE, VPM, & VP PR)
• Club goings on
• District events, promotions, etc. 
  
• This month's action items
• Next month's action items
• Everything else

The biggest hurdle for one-on-ones is often just building the habit of getting them done, especially if the club hasn't done them before. This makes it critical for the president to make the time for them and be consistent about it.