Valuable Questions for Workplace One-On-Ones

I’ve written previously about the connection between self-awareness and innovation. In short, I argued that more people are valued as authentic individuals, the more likely they are to become creative contributors.

The problem is that not all leaders are self-aware, nor do they know how to develop an authentic relationship with their team to cultivate that much-needed value.A lot of people just end up promoted to management because they’ve been with the company for several years or because they were proficient at the job they were put in charge of managing.

Neither of those factors indicate they are qualified to be a manger. Being a great programmer does not mean you’ll be a great manager of programmers, for example. They are entirely different skill-sets.So maybe you are a manager who doesn’t quite know how to develop a team, or perhaps you are a seasoned manager looking for new tools. Whatever the case, Susan Scott in her book Fierce Conversations:

Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time provides an excellent list of questions that can be used for productive one-on-one conversations.