How to Manage 1-on-1’s for Growth?
Empathy won’t Help Designers Grow
You’ve been fooled.
You’ve been told to mentor designers, and been given a “be-bold” growth “plan” with goals that only management understands.
You’ve been lied to.
You’ve been told in TED talks that if only you are nice, if only you deeply embrace the soul of young designers, you’ll be a great mentor.
They were full of s***! Empathy won’t help.
What’s needed to help designers grow is to talk often, to encourage a learning mindset and challenge their progress with actionable goals.
Sounds easy, right? That’s what I thought.
A year ago I was working at Designit, where I started to mentor designers. Our small Berlin office was developing, and we dealt with a big challenge: How to grow design talent?
This challenge is bigger and bigger for tech firms since a few years. According to TechCrunch, companies across Silicon Valley have hired far more designers than ever before since 2013. In fact, between 2013 and 2017 the designer to developer ratio increased 2.5x on average. Imagine what’s the ratio in 2019?!
There have never been as many designers mentored as there are today.
What’s my solution?
Simply said, 1-on-1’s. But wait, do you know what a 1-on-1 is? It’s a private meeting between a mentor and a mentee, used for multiple purposes. In this case, “1-on-1's for growth” are aimed at helping designers grow professionally.
Today I’ll share how to manage 1-on-1’s for growth in three parts:
1. Set-Up for Success: an explorative session to prep.
2. Organize 1-on-1s: practicalities & mindset.
3. 1-on-1s for Growth: approach and questions to follow.
The goal of these talks is that designers get a clear growth direction, develop confidence in their thinking, and ultimately become more self-sufficient.
I’ve written this piece for senior designers that just started to mentor, and also for any designers to challenge their mentors.
Without further ado, let’s dig into it!
1. Set-Up for Success
When I began mentoring, I was eager to understand this challenge beyond my own experiences. I’ve asked friends and colleagues about their mentors. To my surprise, most mentors jump straight into 1-on-1s without preparation. This leads to lower mentee engagement.
As my research continued, I discovered that one of the most important things about mentoring is understanding where to start.
“It’s hard to encourage growth without knowing the abilities and shortcomings of your mentee.”
That’s why before having the first 1-on-1 you should organize a 45-minutes session to: discover struggles and capabilities for growth and decide on a mentoring style. Let me explain.
Start setting the context of this session reviewing the expectations and results that your mentee’s position demands. These should be aligned with your lead.
Now, talk about your mentee’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats— also known as SWOT analysis. This will help you understand their potential. Ask them to answer these questions in advance:
Strengths: What do you do well?
Weaknesses: Where do you need to improve?
Opportunities: What are your long-term growth goals?*
Threats: What obstacles do you face?
- Important! These goals will guide growth, and you’ll use them in 1-on-1s.
A common pitfall with SWOT analysis is to mostly focus on personal qualities. The nature of these qualities makes it difficult for mentors to effectively guide growth towards specific skills that may define designers' maturity. That’s why, you should frame this analysis in a few areas; e.g. core disciplines, secondary disciplines, qualities, foundational skills, responsibilities, etc.
After this session, you’ll be ready to help your mentee grow. On top of that, you’ll understand what the best mentoring style is, given your mentee’s abilities and motivations. To do so, simply ask yourself:
· How capable is your mentee of delivering what’s being asked?
· How motivated is your mentee to deliver what’s being asked?
2. Organize 1-on-1s
Start by deciding how often you’ll talk with your mentee. I recommend meeting every week for the first 2–3 months; after that, meet every second week. Next, create a document to log all 1-on-1s and share it with your mentee, it will help you track your mentee’s progress over time.
Beyond simple practicalities, you need to master these mindsets to lead 1-on-1s:
Curiosity
Advice-giving is overrated. 1-on-1 talks are not about you, they are about your mentee. Just listen, and motivate your mentee to answer their own questions.
“Ask yourself: Can you stay curious a little longer, and rush into advice slower?” — Michael Bungay Stanier. Author of “The Coaching Habit”
Openness
Don’t organize 1-on-1’s in a room where you normally host meetings, or where you work. Break out the routine, find a comfortable place where it’s easy to be comfortable and share thoughts. — Try outside of the office.
Commitment
Make it a priority in your agenda, and don’t skip any sessions. This is a long and slooooow project. It will require to be repeated time and time again before seeing much results.
3. 1-on-1s for Growth
My approach to 1-on-1s is inspired by Kolb’s experiential learning, published in 1984 and influenced by Gestalt psychology. His theory states that a person learns by doing, and contrary to popular methods, allows for reflection as a way to learn.
“If a person learns by doing, a mentor may help a mentee grow by motivating new & challenging experiences.”
Part of Kolb’s theory is the experiential learning cycle. I used this model to shape the questions and the format of “1-on-1’s for growth”.
Today — 5 Min. (Concrete Experience)
This is a soft start to know how your mentee is doing today. By doing so, you’ll better understand their feedback on the next questions. This is also the time to check your mentee’s progress — Look out for growth blockers.
💭 What’s on your mind?
👊 How is it going with the action points? (From past sessions)
Yesterday — 5 Min. (Reflective Observation)
Now, review the most relevant experiences for your mentee since the last session. Make sure they come to the session with three brief answers to each of these questions, listed by importance.
These questions will help you understand your mentee’s preferred growth direction. You will be tempted to give advice, but remember to stay curious and just listen.
💘 What should continue happening?
💣 What shouldn’t happen anymore?
So What — 10 Min. (Abstract Conceptualization)
Listen to how your mentee interprets past experiences and turns them into learnings. This question will help them gain perspective about what happened and develop confident thinking. This section must also be prepared in advance, with one learning.
Look out for strong conclusions, and ask “Why?”. Your mentee may need your support to reinterpret intense experiences and see positive influences.
🚀 What is your main takeaway?
Tomorrow — 10 Min. (Active Experimentation)
Enough of listening, this is when your help is most needed. To wrap-up, together with your mentee decide three new experiences towards their long-term growth goals. (These goals were mentioned during SWOT analysis)
It’s important that your mentee thinks small, and sticks to the time given. If growth actions are ambitious, break them down into smaller actions.
👊 What’s the smallest growth action you can take until we meet again?
Last Thoughts
My ultimate motivation to mentor is being part of transformative experiences, such as professional growth. It’s great that senior designers may be a source of guidance, knowledge, and inspiration.
Having an organized and effective growth process to motivate and guide young designers it’s hard work. Yet it’s great by all means. It gives senior and young designers responsibilities, strengthens teams culture, and empowers organizational progress — So, start today and keep it up!
After all, any process is like a design tool, it only gets better with practice.
… If you enjoyed the read, please tap or click 👏 to help recommend this piece to others. Best regards from Berlin! Oriol.
[Thanks Caroline Arvidsson for your feedback and proofreading. 💖]
