Two-person meetings are the best meetings
Some of the most productive and valuable meetings happen between two people. [1] Why? Because when there are only two of you it creates an environment and requirement for engagement. In larger meetings, it's become accepted that people are multi-tasking. People openly admit that they are not paying attention in large meetings and aren't even embarrassed to say "Can you repeat the question? I was multi-tasking." In two-person meetings the dynamic is different. Your attention is required and it would be socially unacceptable for you to pick up your phone and start scrolling during it. Here are my favorite kinds of two-person meetings and why they are so valuable.
Powerful Two-person Meetings
The Meeting Debrief
After any big meeting, particularly if it's one designed to debate or decide on direction across stakeholders from different business lines, I always connect with a few people one-on-one following the meeting. I will instant message the person following the meeting or walk next to them while exiting the room and ask 'do you have a couple minutes to chat?'. These quick meetings have three objectives and I use a specific set of question prompts.
Perspective: I start with the question: "How do you think that went?" I love this broad question that can be taken anywhere and always ask it in a neutral tone. It never fails to surprise me when others have a different impression of what happened in the room. Understanding the perspectives of others is critically important to influencing across business lines. When you have a better understanding of how people think, it improves your ability to position your ideas in ways that will resonate with them.
Shared understanding: The next question I ask is: "This is what I heard. Did you hear it the same way?" This is about creating shared understanding on the tangible specifics. With this I'm usually confirming that the decisions and next steps that I heard match with what the other person took away from the conversation.
Feedback (positive and negative): Immediately following a meeting is the best time to get and give feedback because feedback is most effective when it is shared with specific examples that can help the other person to know what good looks like (and doesn’t look like). A great framework to consider for giving feedback is the situation-behavior-impact framework from the Center of Creative Leadership. When I’m trying to get feedback, I will often ask: "What do you think I could have said or done differently to be more effective?"
When you create a habit of regularly debriefing with your team and including feedback in that discussion, they will do a better job looking for ways to improve so that they have something to say. There becomes an expectation that feedback is a regular part of workplace interactions and it becomes less emotionally charged.
The [virtual] coffee meeting
I'm convinced that keeping up with your company-internal network through casual one-on-one conversations is the secret to influence that everyone is sleeping on. When you have more work to do than hours in the day, it feels like a ‘waste of time’ to have a coffee meeting to catch up without a stated objective. The irony is if you spent more time building relationships with your network your job would become easier. It’s just like the Tale of Two Product Managers.
Virtual or in person can be similarly effective, the key is to be interested and curious about the other person. In these meetings, your goal is to be listening more than you're speaking. Try to hit a 70/30 split. Here are some of the benefits/objectives of this time.
Increase your likability: It’s human nature to have a preference for people and things that are familiar. It's called the mere-exposure effect. When you take time to connect with the people you know, it increases your likability. Why is this important? Because it often translates into things like being recommended for roles or projects and other help that is above and beyond what is required. By building relationships, you’re building a group of people that will be your advocates.
Connect dots: When you're required to collaborate across lines of business, there can be competing objectives and priorities that make it challenging. Sometimes you have no idea what these competing priorities are. When you understand the interests of the others, you can better position your ideas in a way that makes them more appealing. In these meetings, part of the objective is to learn the hot topics and pet projects of different groups to have a better picture of what is happening across the company.
1-on-1 with your boss
Don’t waste this time giving status updates that you could just as easily have emailed. Instead leverage your boss during this time to get their input and support. It’s your boss’s job, and in their best interest, to help you succeed in your role. Help them to help you by focusing this time on what will have the biggest impact.
Perspective and Input: There’s that word again, perspective. Your boss has exposure to different information than you do. They are more likely to have a better sense of the ‘big picture’ of the company. No matter how senior you are in your role, you should use the perspective and input from your boss to help shape your work so that you don’t take it in a direction that is out of favor with leadership or not aligned with the broader strategic direction.
Clearing roadblocks: Escalate when someone or something is in the way of getting your job done. It’s not defeat to admit that something is in your way. You never know, your boss may have ideas or ways to resolve it that you don’t have access to.
Conclusion
The meeting debrief, coffee meetings, and 1:1 meetings are three proof points for why two-person meetings are the best meetings. But they can’t all be two-person meetings, so you need to also know how to hold meetings that don’t suck!
Footnote [1] While this statement is purely anecdotal based on my 20 years of experience, the role of meeting design on effectiveness has shown that the larger the meeting size negatively effects attendee involvement. Journal of Business and Psychology volume 24, pages 65–76