I have joined as manager in a new company six months back. Team has very senior engineers and most of them are working with the same company for more than 5 years (some 10+ years). I scheduled weekly 1-1 with them right after I joined. For every 1-1, I go to their cube and they tell me they have nothing to discuss. Some times, they are not even there. After few times, I kind of stopped going to their cubes for 1-1. They don't come either. It shows up in the calendar every week. They don't come or I don't go. I don't feel good about this.
Some of the folks in the team are very intimidating. Being new, I did not push very hard on this. Now that it is almost 6 months since I am here, I want to correct this situation.
Please suggest what I can do to revive regular scheduled 1-1 with the team.
You need to have One on Ones
Tell your team, in a staff meeting, or in person, that you will be scheduling one on ones, and that they will be done weekly.
And you schedule them: a time and a place. There is a podcast on scheduling one on ones (Dec 17, 2007). If the direct doesn't show up, then you have an issue for which feedback is appropriate. Your directs, no matter how senior, don't have the right to just do whatever they want and avoid anything they don't like. There is a forum discussion on this topic, but I couldn't find it.
You must stick to it. If you don't follow through this time, they'll know you aren't committed.
Here are a couple related threads:
http://www.manager-tools.com/forums-3436
http://www.manager-tools.com/forums-2404
John
What I've found helpful for
What I've found helpful for the O3s is to have rotating topics of focus. For instance, I operate on a four week schedule:
Week 1 - productivity & capacity
Week 2 - career development
Week 3 - productivity & capacity
Week 4 - general O3 (open focus / summary)
Perhaps if you have a similar but customized approach to your business model, you might get more interest from the folks. Keeping in mind, of course, that the O3 isn't necessarily voluntary. They're going to be there because it's part of what you expect from them. Call it collaboration or communication or whatever niche it fits best into their annual evaluation but somehow someway their participation (or lack thereof) will be noted and reflected in some form or fashion as part of their performance.
Personally, I would have a team meeting (pull everyone together at the same time) so that everyone gets the same message about the importance and impact of participation in the O3 process. I would delete all pre-existing standing meetings off Outlook and I would come up with a schedule of available days/times and have everyone sign up & publicly commit to their new O3 timeslot. And then when the meeting's over, I would not do anything else before you send out the new recurring meeting invites to everyone for their preferred timeslots to prove to them how dedicated you are to this program.
Expect the first few sessions with each DR to be filled with pauses and silences. Even though you've been the manager for six months, it doesn't sound like you've been able to develop much of a relationship with any of them so there's no common ground for you guys to talk about yet. By the time you've been doing them for 4-6 weeks, the 30 mins will fly right by for 90% of them (best guess) and the DR's will loathe them less & not try to avoid them as much.
Some more thoughts
Just about everyone here will echo that you need to do them to build the relationships. Ironically, you need to get past the resistance to start them and that would be a non issue if the relationships already existed.
You can try the heavy hand, but I suspect there is discomfort with that approach otherwise you would not be posting this. Here are some thoughts to help the rollout:
Use the MT O3 introduction e-mail. It is very well thought out and proven in the field (I used it just recently in my new role). However, it may not serve you as well in your case since it sounds like the relationship building angle is not going to be well received. Still, it does not hurt.
Also, you could work the angle that a 30 minute meeting once a week will replace most of the random interruptions that might occur during the week when you talk to your team for 1 reason or another. Although, I suspect that a lot of your communications are by e-mail which weakens the argument some. Of course, I am sure you agree that e-mail is evil and should only be used as a last resort in communicating with your team, but that is another topic...
You can also outline some specific things that you will cover that will appeal to their work interests. Topics could include following up on assignments, clearing roadblocks or vetting issues. If they are anti-meeting/conversation they probably have issues with others in the organization that you can help with. If they can see some work value in it and that it will save them time, they will be less resistant out of the gate.
I would also suggest that you do not go to them. Have them come to you, or ideally use some small conference room. I know MT states that doing it cube-side is fine, but since they are uneasy or digging in, getting them out of their cube is half the battle. Over time, you can use your space instead of a room, but I would never use their cube.
If they blow you off, walk over to their cube and ask "is now a good time or do you need to reschedule?" If they ignore the question and indicate they have nothing to talk about, state that you do and repeat the first question. Once they realize it is not going away, they will give in.
Do not worry about the soft stuff (how’s the family, etc) until the initial unease starts to go away. Even if they are resistant, they have things to say and they want to talk about their future.
Hope this helps,
Mike