Do you document all the 1-1 conversations that you have with your team?

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Yes, but I recommend you do this in a transparent way to everyone and share with them.

I create a weekly structure around:

• What objectives did we set for this week?
• Which of the goals we set out to achieve did we complete?
• What worked well?
• What worked less well?
• How are you doing?
• How did what we did this week contribute to the advancement of the business?
• How did what we did this week contribute to advancing your career path?
• What did we learn new?
• What experiment can we do to improve processes, time, and collaboration that impacts ourselves, our team or our fellow teams?
• What are our objectives for the coming week?

e.g.

I map these as individual rows in a spreadsheet. I then map the dates as column headers, where each date represents the date of our meeting. This breakdown allows us to track progress/blockers/solutions on a historic basis.

The dates are weekly and shared in advance with the individual. Say we meet on a Friday. The individual needs to complete the filling in of the column for the upcoming meeting by Thursday. I then have the night and the morning to review the feedback, think about it, comment/add notes to discuss.

By the time of the meeting, we are both prepared. We walk in; we run through the topics, we converse on the areas that need attention. If any time is remaining, pick up either a topic of interest to both, OR we get some minutes back.

I love this structure, and it has never failed me. Drives rapport, accountability, maturity and aligned discussions of mutual growth.

Plus, performance reviews are NEVER a surprise to either side. They are continuous throughout the journey.