Get 300x More Engagement With This...

 

One-on-one meetings that feel unproductive and uninspired.

These meetings typically become monologues.

Rather than dialogues.

Gallup found that having regular one-on-one meetings skyrocketed engagement by 300%.

Today we are going to learn how to CRUSH our One-on-One Meetings using the:

‘One-on-One Meetings Quick Guide'. 

Let’s dive in!

Additional Pro Tips for Managers

1. Schedule a "buffer time" of 10 minutes before each one-on-one to review past notes and clear your mind.

   1. This helps you fully engage with your team member.

2. Encourage a “no-interruption” policy during these meetings to signify the value you place on the individual's time and thoughts.

3. Develop active listening skills that involve not only hearing but also understanding and responding to your employees' needs and ideas.

4. Not every one-on-one needs to follow the same structure.

   1. Be open to walking meetings, coffee catch-ups, or virtual check-ins when in-person isn’t possible.

   2. This shows adaptability and keeps the meetings fresh.

5. Every quarter, supplement one-on-ones with feedback from other team members.

   1. This offers a holistic view of the employee's performance and integration within the team.

6. Help employees visualize their career path in the company.

   1. Discuss not just the next step, but also the broader trajectory, to keep them motivated and engaged with the company’s future.

7. Be prepared to tackle discomfort. If there's a known issue, don't skirt around it.

   1. Address it head-on with sensitivity and a focus on finding a solution.

8. Develop small but meaningful rituals to recognize progress and effort.

   1. Such as a "kudos" moment in the meeting to celebrate milestones, no matter how small.

Additional Pro Tips for Employees

1. Create a “success log” that tracks your achievements and challenges.

   1. Refer to this log when preparing for your one-on-one to ensure a comprehensive discussion.

2. Practice articulating your thoughts on career development.

   1. Consider role-playing scenarios with a mentor or peer before the meeting.

3. Seek feedback from peers ahead of your one-on-one to gather diverse perspectives on your performance and development areas.

4. When presenting challenges, also offer potential solutions.

   1. This shows you’re proactive and engaged in problem-solving, not just problem-identifying.

5. Share a skill or project you’re passionate about that may not be directly related to your work.

   1. This can open up discussions about personal development that also benefit your professional growth.

6. Discuss a recent industry trend or an article you read.

   1. It shows initiative and a desire to be engaged in the broader industry dialogue.

7. Practice giving feedback upwards.

   1. Managers can also grow from constructive feedback.

   2. Frame it positively and from the perspective of improving team dynamics and performance.

8. After the meeting, send a thank-you note summarizing the discussion and next steps.

   1. It’s a professional courtesy that helps both parties stay aligned on action items

Growth Roadmap

In my team, I noticed there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

Projects were being completed, but the spark for innovation was missing.

Upon one-on-one discussions, I discovered that the root cause was a sense of stagnation.

Team members felt unsure about their growth prospects, and thus, were only engaging with their tasks at a surface level.

I decided to implement a "Growth Roadmap" as part of my one-on-one meetings with them.

Here's how I approached the solution:

1. Individualized Growth Discussions:

   1. I started by having in-depth conversations with each team member about their career aspirations.

      1. It was essential to understand not just their current role but where they saw themselves in the future.

2. Creating a Visual Roadmap:

   1. For each team member, we co-created a visual representation of their potential career path within the company.

      1. This included short-term goals, like skill development, as well as long-term possibilities, such as leadership roles or cross-departmental collaborations.

3. Setting Milestones:

   1. We broke down these paths into tangible milestones with clear timelines.

      1. Each milestone was tied to specific actions, such as leading a project, mentoring a new hire, or completing a certification.

4. Regular Updates:

   1. Each one-on-one meeting included a review of their roadmap.

      1. We celebrated progress, discussed any roadblocks, and adjusted the plan as necessary.

5. Linking to Performance:

   1. I integrated the milestones from their growth roadmaps into their performance evaluations, making it clear that their growth and the company's success were interconnected.

The result was transformative.

Morale soared, engagement in daily tasks increased, and a renewed sense of purpose led to higher-quality work and innovation.

This approach proved that a clear vision of one's future within the organization could reignite passion and drive performance.

Here's how you can make it real over the next 4 days:

Day 1: Reflect and Plan

• Take 15 minutes to reflect on your past one-on-one meetings.

• What has been missing or could be improved?

• Choose one lesson you want to work on.

• Write down how this lesson could change the outcome of your meetings and create a basic action plan for integrating it into your next one-on-one.

  • ChatGPT Prompt to Help: "Help me analyze the strengths and weaknesses of my previous one-on-one meetings and suggest an action plan for incorporating [chosen lesson].”

Day 2: Research & Learn

• Dedicate 30 minutes to researching your chosen lesson.

• Look for articles, videos, or podcasts that offer additional insights.

• Note down at least one new idea that you can incorporate into your approach.

  • ChatGPT Prompt to Help: "Provide me with resources or ideas that will help me understand [chosen lesson] better and how I can apply it to my one-on-one meetings."

Day 3: Prepare & Role-play

• Spend 20 minutes preparing for your next one-on-one meeting with the chosen lesson in mind.

• Write down specific talking points or questions you want to include.

• If possible, role-play the meeting with a colleague or friend to practice integrating the new concepts.

  • ChatGPT Prompt to Help: "I'm preparing for a one-on-one meeting and want to focus on [chosen lesson]. Suggest a script or key points I should cover and also guide me through a role-play scenario."

Day 4: Implement & Evaluate

• Implement your chosen lesson in your next one-on-one meeting.

• After the meeting, take 10 minutes to evaluate how it went.

• What worked well?

• What could be improved?

• Make notes on these reflections to refine your approach for the next time.

  • ChatGPT Prompt to Help: "I have implemented [chosen lesson] in my one-on-one meeting today. Help me debrief. I'd like to review what went well and what could be improved for next time. This is how the one-on-one meeting went…"

Don't fear slow progress, fear only stagnation.

Embrace even the smallest steps forward, for they are part of your growth journey. (Chinese proverb)

Every one-on-one meeting is a chance to reset, re-energize, and re-align.

They serve as a mirror to our investment in our team and in the cultivation of our shared future.

The greatest strides in our careers and personal development often come from the conversations we have in the quiet corners of our workdays.

https://tinyurl.com/3k5vv5y7

What is the best digital marketing / marketing framework?

 

How the RACE Framework can help you improve your digital marketing

Marketing frameworks are really useful tools to help us plan, manage and optimize marketing. They’re particularly useful for digital marketing, since it’s so complex today because of all the digital channels available. This is shown by our customer lifecycle visual (below), which suggests the many different touchpoints that potential communications may have with their audiences.

The example shown in this visual is for a B2B scenario where different nurture activities are used to help convert interest in a product or service through to purchase. Many similar stages are involved with B2C marketing.

In this article, I’ll explain how and why we created the Smart Insights RACE Framework for online and multichannel marketing and at the same time, explain some of the key features of marketing frameworks. When I created RACE, it was my view that it would be useful to develop a framework that worked better for digital channels than classic marketing frameworks, but since customers use both physical and digital channels, the framework would work for both.

We will also look at different types of frameworks, with examples and consider some of their strengths and weaknesses.

Types of marketing frameworks

Within both marketing and specifically digital marketing, there are different frameworks that can be applied to different situations.

These are the different types of framework that I have seen most often:

1. Consumer behaviour framework - this describes how users respond to communications and buy, i.e., it’s the steps of a buying process. The first visual in this article is a consumer behaviour framework. The AIDA marketing framework is the best known example of a behavioural framework, sometimes known by academics as a ‘hierarchy of response’ model.
2. Marketing activity planning frameworks. We originally created RACE to help provide a comprehensive breakdown of key activities that to be controlled for effective marketing today. This is useful when you’re looking to perform a digital marketing audit to review your marketing to identify which activities you need to improve. As I’ll explain later, the more detailed breakdown of RACE contains 25 key activities and we define further Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to expand on that, so that marketers can prioritize which activities they need to work on as part of marketing planning.
3. Marketing process framework. This defines the stages or steps involved in creating and implementing a strategy and plan. Although RACE is now well-known as a planning framework, it it fact has a process component too - this defines the series of steps that are needed to create the digital marketing plan.  The second part of RACE defined in our in-depth article on the RACE Framework and process describes a process of:

• • Opportunity - Complete audits and set targets based on forecasts
  • Strategy - Prioritize marketing activities to achieve targets
  • Action  - Take action to implement that strategy - we do this as part of 90-day planning

4. Marketing maturity framework - these are useful for comparing how advanced different aspects of marketing such as digital marketing, SEO or social media are within an organization, so they can be used for auditing and benchmarking to identify improvements.See our digital marketing maturity framework for examples of these.

What is needed for an effective marketing or digital planning framework?

There are many classical marketing frameworks available which have been developed ‘over the years’, such as AIDA, described in our article Marketing models that have stood the test of time.  There are also many specific digital marketing frameworks developed since Internet marketing emerged in the mid-1990s (see our post listing digital marketing models).

Since there are so many alternatives, to choose the best framework for you, it’s worth thinking through what you are looking for in a framework. This is how I see the four main requirements:

• Clear purpose  - an effective marketing framework is one that is used to help people looking to understand, audit or manage marketing. Digital marketing is still relatively new, but as we have said, is complex, so we have found that many people are looking to create a digital marketing strategy or plan. That should be the main purpose - to create an effective plan.  This is the case with RACE, but other frameworks such as thee 6Cs are more focused on consumer behaviour
• Realistic model balancing simplicity, complexity and reality - frameworks provide a structure to help simplify a complex situation, so they are a simplified model of the reality.  This is a difficult challenge for the framework creator. If the framework is too simple, it will be easier to understand, but potentially too simple. To get around this challenge, with RACE we created three levels of complexity. There is a simple, 5-part breakdown, but this is divided down further to cover all the digital marketing activities that need to be managed. Each of the 5 parts of RACE is split into 5 more parts, to give a 5X5 = 25-part structure. Each of these 5 is broken down further to define more specific tasks or standard operating procedures (SOPs) that need to be managed. The marketing funnel framework is an interesting example of a model that struggles to balance simplicity with realism. In recent years it has been criticized for not being realistic in portraying complex customer journeys. We explore this in our article by Annmarie Hanlon: 'Customer journey models to master your omnichannel strategy' and discuss in more detail below.
• Application to different businesses and sectors - A framework is most useful if it is open to a range of different sectors. It’s commonplace to develop consumer or retail marketing frameworks, like Google’s ZMOT model, but they aren’t applicable more widely, for example into B2B. We developed RACE so that it can be applied to different business and revenue models - from online-only to multichannel businesses - so it applies to businesses both where transactions occur online, or sales involve human interactions.
• Actionable - This is why we developed RACE, we wanted to create a practical framework that can be used to improve results from marketing. To do this the framework must help complete an audit, review against competitors, create a strategy and then implement and review a plan.

Marketing Funnel Frameworks

Hierarchy of response frameworks, such as AIDA, are often formed into funnel models to assist planning. The RACE Framework is an example of a funnel model. Since these models are linear they have been criticized, since commentators believe they are an oversimplification and don't reflect the non-linear nature of decision-making.

Based on empirical research, in 2009, McKinsey & Company suggested an alternative non-linear customer journey model to the traditional purchase funnel. Their research was founded on interviews with 20,000 businesses in the USA, Germany, and Japan. We describ it further in this article on alternative customer journey models.

More recently, BCG in their 2025 article, It’s Time for Marketers to Move Beyond the Linear Funnel, also asserted that we need to move beyond the linear marketing funnel model to what they call 'influence maps'. This is based on the assertion that if you 'force-fit' touchpoints into the linear model it can miss a lot of nuance about how consumer behaviour and media and marketing planning to influence consumers works in practice. They hinted at this complexity as follows:

As an alternative, they suggest that influence maps can be used which show how different consumer behaviours, that they label 'Stream', 'Scroll', 'Search' and 'Shop',  occur in parallel.

This visualization gives more flexibility in describing different journeys. In the following example, two purchasers of a similar consumer product have completely different research strategies and actions on the journeys.

They suggest that, in the future, the power of AI analysis to analyze data about touchpoints and GenAI to create compelling creative will make it possible to deliver more effective media planning analysis to support the most influential journeys.

Despite this innovation in thinking, I don't believe this means that the linear funnel 'is dead'. Far from it. Its simplicity still has a number of benefits. A funnel-based framework like RACE remains popular since it enables strategists to:

• Audit the maturity and effectiveness of marketing activities with the aim of making them more efficient, i.e., identify gaps in managing channels effectively
• Set objectives to improve engagement across the funnel
• Develop strategies that prioritize activities to improve engagement using channels
• Manage tactical activities to improve always-on activities, e.g., 90-day planning
• Report on performance against these objectives - but including multi-touch attribution (MTA) to assess the contribution from upper funnel activities on conversion

A discussion of this consumer journey model on LinkedIn prompted by Neil Perkin's summary shows that many believe funnels still have their place. For example, Marketing Professor Vincent Balusseau of Audencia Business School said:"

I never quite understood why people (even experts) conflate funnels and journeys. Funnels are not meant to help understand journeys; that's the purpose of Consumer journey maps. Funnels are valuable for various purposes (depending on the type of funnel used, e.g., a conversion funnel in eCommerce, a brand funnel in a brand tracking study, etc.). So, when I read that "Gen Z has broken the marketing funnel," I sigh. The fact that journeys are becoming more complex does not imply that the funnel as a model (and its different variations) has stopped being useful".

What is the best market framework?

To return to the question at the start of this article and by way of a summary, the best framework is one which meets the requirements of being realistic, actionable and applicable to different sectors.  In this article I have focused mainly on planning frameworks, but there are many consumer frameworks too.

https://tinyurl.com/zpt4pd86

Технологии менеджмента. Уроки 68 - 69

 

Урок 68. Как измерить "неизмеримое", или Оценка качественных KPI.

В предыдущем уроке мы поговорили о том, как рассчитывать индексы KPI и на их основе рейтинги полезности сотрудников. Но мы с вами знаем, что в соглашении о целях могут быть не только количественные, но и качественные показатели. С количественными в принципе все понятно. Их надо измерять. А можно ли измерить качественные KPI? Нет. Но их можно оценить.  

Для оценивания качественных показателей необходимо использовать порядковую шкалу. На практике с этой целью обычно применяют 5-балльную (как в школе), 10-балльную или 100-балльную шкалы. Например, если использовать 100-балльную шкалу, то все возможные значения показателя можно разделить на несколько уровней:  

 

    • Опасный результат – 0 баллов.  

    • Очень слабый результат – 20 баллов. 

    • Слабый результат – 40 баллов. 

    • Посредственный результат – 60 баллов. 

    • Ожидаемый результат – 80 баллов. 

    • Отличный или превосходный результат – 100 баллов. 

 

Но эта шкала задает лишь опорные значения качественных показателей. После предварительной оценки, соответствующей с точки зрения руководителя (или другого внутреннего клиента) качеству полученного результата, дается более точная количественная оценка показателя внутри заданного интервала.  

Например, если по какому-то качественному показателю руководитель оценил работу своего сотрудника за прошедший период на уровне 60 баллов - «посредственный результат» (как бы на «троечку»), то затем он может дать более точную оценку, например, 50 или 70 баллов с учетом дополнительной информации по данному показателю. Это позволяет более гибко и точно оценивать результаты работы, поскольку «Посредственный результат» может быть ближе к слабому («три с минусом») или, напротив, ближе к ожидаемому результату («три с плюсом»). Эти нюансы и «оттенки» в результатах можно учесть с помощью количественных оценок в 100-балльной шкале.  

Используя данную шкалу, для качественных показателей разумно устанавливать Базу на уровне 40 или 50 баллов (как бы на «двойке» или на «тройке с минусом»), Норму - на уровне «Ожидаемый результат» и Цель - на уровне «Отличный результат».  

 При постановке задач по качественным KPI необходимо достаточно подробно   истолковать (расшифровать) опорные оценки показателей или сделать это хотя бы для нормативных значений (на уровне 80 баллов), чтобы сотрудник однозначно понимал, какие к нему предъявляются требования и каких результатов от него ожидают его внутренние клиенты и, прежде всего, его непосредственный руководитель. Так, на рисунке выше показан пример расшифровки нормативного значения показателя «Соблюдение регламента документооборота». Использование определенной шкалы и расшифровка опорных значений повышают точность и существенно снижают произвол и субъективность в оценке качественных показателей деятельности. 

Урок 69. Что такое Performance Review?

В предыдущем уроке мы поговорили о том, как оценивать качественные показатели деятельности. Но предположим, что месяц или квартал закончились, все показатели мы оценили или измерили. Что теперь? А теперь надо встретиться с сотрудником и согласовать полученные результаты. Для этого проводится обзор эффективности работы.

Обзор эффективности работы (Performance Review) – это обсуждение результатов работы за прошедший период между сотрудником и его   руководителем. В ходе этой встречи руководитель сообщает сотруднику его результаты по количественным и качественным KPI, высказывает свое мнение о работе сотрудника, подчеркивает положительные и отрицательные моменты, благодарит за хорошую работу, дает конструктивную критику, если по каким-то показателям результаты оказались ниже нормативных, вместе с подчиненным ищет причины невыполнения планов и способы их устранения.

Важно помнить, что обзор эффективности работы – это не «разбор полетов» и не монолог руководителя при молчаливом присутствии подчиненного! Это диалог на равных между руководителем и его сотрудником. В ходе такого диалога должен происходить обмен мнениями. Руководитель должен выслушать и услышать своего сотрудника. Если по некоторым KPI результаты работы подчиненного его не устраивают, то надо разобраться, почему это произошло, что помешало выполнить норматив. Здесь очень важно, что сам сотрудник думает об этом. Руководитель может и не владеть полной и исчерпывающей информацией.

В ходе диалога надо совместно «докопаться» до причин невыполнения нормативов и, если необходимо, привлечь к обсуждению других сотрудников организации (например, из смежных подразделений), которые могут предоставить полезную информацию. Ведь причины могут быть самые разнообразные и часто не зависящие от сотрудника. Если, скажем, для эффективной работы сотруднику не хватает квалификации или мотивации, то в этом нет его вины! Это уже вина его руководителей. Ведь сотрудники работают так, как ими управляют их руководители. Тем более, сотрудник не может нести ответственность за свои личные результаты, если они зависят от работы его коллег или других подразделений. По таким показателям вообще нельзя оценивать его результаты! А, если сотрудник вынужден руководствоваться устаревшими инструкциями или регламентами, и ничего с этим поделать не может? В этом случае он также ни причем. Значит, надо менять инструкции и совершенствовать регламенты. Причин может быть много.

В процессе обсуждения руководитель и сотрудник должны прийти к общему пониманию того, что на самом деле мешает работе, и что с этим делать дальше. Только после осознания причин неудовлетворительных результатов, можно выставлять окончательные оценки, особенно по качественным показателям, где высока доля субъективности. Итоговые оценки показателей должны быть согласованы между руководителем и сотрудником.

Обзоры эффективности работы должны не подавлять или унижать, а вносить ясность в работу, повышать ее осознанность, мотивировать и вдохновлять сотрудников на улучшение своих результатов. В этом и заключается смысл мотивирующих бесед под названием Performance Review. И, если необходимо, их надо проводить не только в конце квартала, но и хоть каждую неделю, ибо в нашей жизни все очень быстро меняется, и важно вовремя успевать корректировать наши планы и задачи. Система KPI не работает «на автомате», а только при постоянном, проактивном и живом участии руководителей.

https://tinyurl.com/yfenua65

Level Up Your Marketing

 

Reflecting on the marketing activities in the organization, as well as studying the work of many authors on this issue, I came to the conclusion that, conditionally, the development of marketing in a company can be divided into four stages.

Many companies, unfortunately, still do not use marketing, so I strongly hope that this article will be a kind of impetus to the development of this issue in such companies. But what happens more often is that by creating a marketing department in your company, many get stuck at the first or second level, which is also not a good indicator.

Ideally, each company should strive for its marketing to reach the fourth level. Only in this case, the company can be called successful, at least in terms of marketing.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the stages.

Learning to walk: “Organization of marketing activities”

• The initial stage, the lack of a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of marketing activities (the service is just needed)

• All problems are organizational in nature. The main tasks of the marketing service are aimed at survival

• “Marketing” is a department

First words: “Primary Communications”

• Allocation of the promotion function as the main one (the service will be engaged in promotion and advertising since there is nothing more)

• The main problem is the assessment of the effectiveness of the marketing service (marketers are people who spend money on an organization)

• “Marketing” is an advertisement

First love: “Development of marketing information functions”

• The emergence of a real need for marketing information (I wonder what our market share is)

• The main task of the marketing service is to obtain as cheap information as possible, respectively, the problem is the price/quality ratio of marketing information

• “Marketing” is information

Adulthood: “Development of analytical functions of marketing”

• All the necessary marketing information is available. The methods and channels of its receipt are worked out. The need arises for analytical data processing

• The main task of the marketing service is to develop effective marketing solutions, respectively, the problem is adequate methods and models for processing marketing information

• “Marketing” is solutions

So this is how the marketing should develop in every company. And, of course, this is not an easy way. If you do everything right, then in some time you will go through all the marketing levels and reach the top. Usually it will take from 4 to 7 years to pass the first three and get to the fourth. Some companies do it faster, some a bit longer. Here everything depends just o the marketing team and top managmenet.

You should do all your best to prove your bosses that marketing isn’t just about the advertising or exhibitions, but about the strategy, business growth and profit.

https://tinyurl.com/5n7s4eby