A couple of weeks ago, I wrote something about your first weeks in a new role and about how to onboard yourself. During my own first weeks, I realized that there is one important factor which can determine your future relationship with your directs: Your first meeting with your new directs.
I think this sets the tone for everything that follows. It’s good to prepare that.
First meeting new direct
“Tell me about yourself” is probably a good way to start. But you can also start and open up about yourself, tell a story about your life and how you got here. Sometimes this helps to get the discussion started. But what other things should you cover? Make sure to create some kind of guidance for yourself, in order not to forget some important points. This could be:
- Schedule the meeting for every direct report, don’t do it spontaneously.
- Don’t forget anyone. If some of your people are on vacation, schedule the meeting for later.
- Try to create a non-threatening atmosphere. Bring cookies.
- Plan with at least 1.5h for every session, even if you think this might be too long. Don’t rush it, take your time to listen.
- Figure out what expectation do you have beforehand, so you have good talking points.
- How do you want to work together, what expectations does your direct report have?
In the first couple of minutes, make sure to cover topics to complete your “data” about the person. Everything that you don’t know yet or might be missing from the personnel file.
- Age, Birthdate (Might come in handy when you want to create a birthday calendar)
- How long she is working in the company
- Previous companies or roles
- Family/Kids
After that, move towards “how do we want to work together” part.
- “Tell me about your life”. Great open-ended question to start with.
- What are your expectations of me?
- These are my expectations… (see some of my examples here)
- What makes you grumpy? How will I know when you’re in a bad mood? How can I help you when you’re grumpy? Taken from this great article from Lara Hogan on Questions for our first 1:1
- What are your goals for the future?
- What do you think is missing currently in the team?
If you still have time, start introducing how you are going to do 1:1s. You can already talk about the Moving Motivators cards, but I would postpone the actual game to one of your 1:1s. It can be overwhelming at first.
Here are some resources that helped me figure out what to ask during my first meeting: