Stop opening 1:1s with this question
February 18, 2026
Hi Everyone,
"How are things going?" is the worst way to open a 1:1.
You'll get a progress update you could have read in Slack, and the meeting ends without either of you learning much.
And it's also a massive missed opportunity, because 1:1s done correctly can literally transform both the person and the organization.
In fact, Gallup found that weekly 1:1s make employees nearly 3x as likely to be engaged and reduce turnover by 67%.
But only when the employee drives the conversation.
Today, we're sharing five questions to make that happen.
Try these in your next 1:1 meeting
Michael Bungay Stanier, who studied coaching habits across organizations, built a set of questions designed to keep the employee talking and the manager listening.
You don't need all five in every meeting, but even two or three will change the conversation.
"What's on your mind?" – Start with this rather than jumping into project updates. It invites the employee to bring whatever matters to them and signals that this is their meeting.
"And what else?" – Ask this before you respond to their first answer. The first thing someone raises is rarely the most important thing, and this gives them room to get to what's actually weighing on them.
"What's the real challenge here for you?" – This narrows a broad situation down to the specific problem the person is stuck on, and moves the conversation toward something you can work on together.
"How can I help?" – This puts the employee in control of what they need from you and stops you from solving problems they didn't ask you to solve.
"What was most useful for you?"– Close with this. It tells you what landed, helps the employee reflect, and gives you feedback on whether the meeting was worth their time.
Across all five, the same principle applies. Aim for the employee to be speaking roughly 80% of the time. If you notice yourself talking more than they are, ask another question.
One thing to watch for
Even with the right questions, many managers fall back into advice-giving mode.
"Have you thought about…?" and "What about trying…?" sound like coaching, but they're suggestions with a question mark attached.
As Bungay Stanier puts it, "Your advice is not as good as you think it is." Let the employee work through it – over time, that builds judgment they can use when you're not in the room.
Go deeper
👉 Michael Bungay Stanier: The Coaching Habit – where these five questions come from, and a good starting point if you want to go further
👉 First Round Review: Take Your 1:1s to the Next Level with These 6 Must-Reads – practical advice from leaders at Apple, Slack, and Facebook on running better 1:1s
👉 Lara Hogan: Questions for our first 1:1 – a practical question set for building trust with new direct reports from day one
Coming up tomorrow
Tomorrow, we're sharing a framework that helps you communicate bad news.
That's it for today!
P.S. How do you currently open your 1:1s? If you try "What's on your mind?" this week, we'd love to hear whether it changed the conversation.