Building 1:1s that don't break when you're out

Here’s a simple test. Take a week off. Don’t answer email. Don’t check Slack. Don’t take the 4pm call from your GM about the thing. Just be unavailable. When you come back, how much ground did the team lose?

If the answer is “a lot,” you don’t have a communication system. You have a dependency. You’re the glue. And glue wears out.

The fix is weekly 1:1s with your key people. Not performance reviews. Not status updates. A real, structured, protected thirty minutes between you and each person who matters. The same time, every week, no exceptions. Even when it feels like you don’t need it. Especially then.

Here’s the structure I use. Ten minutes: them. What they’re working on, what’s stuck, what they need from you. Ten minutes: you. What you’re seeing, what’s coming, what you need from them. Ten minutes: relationship. How’s the job going? Are they where they want to be? What’s the honest answer?

That last ten minutes is where most owners skip. Don’t. Three months of skipped relationship check-ins and your best people are already interviewing elsewhere and you don’t know it.

[REAL STORY: a time you saw 1:1 discipline pay off — a problem caught early, a great employee who stayed because they felt heard, a client who installed this rhythm and it unstuck something.]

The common objection: “we talk all day, I don’t need a scheduled meeting.” Yes you do. Casual conversation is transactional. 1:1s are where you build trust, surface what nobody says out loud, and catch small problems before they’re big ones. Different function. Both needed.

Two rules. First: take notes. Every 1:1, one page of notes, shared with them. That’s the paper trail of your leadership. Second: follow up on what you committed to last week. If you said you’d do something and didn’t, flag it at the top of the next meeting. Modeling accountability is the whole job.

The business that runs on discipline runs without you in it. The business that runs on your presence can’t let you go. Build the rhythm. Then take the week off and see what happens.