Manager training module
Running an Effective 1:1
A two-track operating guide: read the person, then manage the performance. Work through it in order — the sequence is the method.
The Person
Where are they today, and what does that change about how you run the next twenty minutes?
The Performance
What is the work telling us, measured against data — and what happens next?
01 — The case
Your highest-leverage meeting
Three numbers, then the point. The numbers are context; the point is what you do on Monday.
The status readout
- Manager drives the agenda start to finish
- Numbers get reviewed; nothing gets decided
- Feedback lands blind to where the person is
- No record — the same issue resurfaces next month
- First thing cancelled when the week gets busy
The two-track 1:1
- Rep speaks first; you diagnose before you direct
- You read their state, then choose how to deliver
- Performance discussed against CRM data, not memory
- Every session logged, with a running coaching log
- Ends with named actions and an owner on each
02 — The framework
Two tracks, in this order
Track 1 comes first every single time. You cannot calibrate feedback you deliver before you know what state you're delivering it into.
- Current state — energy, focus, frustration, momentum
- Life outside work that's pulling on their attention
- Wins they haven't been recognized for
- Relationships on the team and across departments
- Whether today is the right day for a hard conversation
This is a five-to-ten minute diagnostic, not small talk and not therapy. Its only job is to tell you how to run the next twenty minutes. Once you have the read, move.
- Pipeline health, coverage, and stage movement
- Task and follow-up execution against commitments
- Skill patterns from recorded calls and deal reviews
- Cross-functional feedback from PC, MA, and client services
- Blockers you own and need to clear
Pull the data before the meeting. Walking in cold and asking "how's your pipeline?" hands the narrative to the rep and turns a review into a story.
03 — Track 1 · Framework
The Mood Elevator
Larry Senn's model: nineteen floors we all ride every day. The floor a person is on determines the quality of their thinking — not the other way around. Select a floor to see how to run that 1:1.
Thoughts drive the floor
Mood follows thinking, not circumstance. The same pipeline looks solvable at "curious" and hopeless at "worried."
Low floors distort judgment
On the lower floors people over-read criticism, under-read support, and defend rather than absorb.
Moods are contagious
You bring a floor into the room too. Arrive frustrated and you will get a defensive rep back.
Source: Larry Senn, The Mood Elevator (2017). Floor labels condensed for training use; the coaching guidance on each floor is ours, not Senn's.
04 — Track 1 · Application
Calibrate the delivery to the floor
Same message, different day, completely different outcome. This is the practical payoff of Track 1.
05 — Track 1 · Technique
Reading the floor in five minutes
You are looking for a change against their baseline, not against the team average.
Signals to watch
- Energy in the first 30 seconds versus their normal
- Camera on or off — and whether that's changed recently
- Short, closed answers where they usually elaborate
- Blame language: "marketing never," "the leads are"
- Withdrawal from team channels, or unusually quiet in meetings
- Overcommitting and then missing — a stress tell, not a laziness tell
- Sudden pace change: slower output, or frantic and unfocused
- What they lead with when you ask an open question
Openers that surface state
Ask, then stop talking. Count to five. The silence after the question is where the real answer lives.
06 — Track 2 · Coverage
What performance actually covers
Six areas. You won't hit all six every week — but if an area hasn't come up in a month, that's the gap.
07 — Question bank
Prompts that do the work
Filter by track, or shuffle three at random for your next session. Every question here makes the rep do the thinking — if you're diagnosing out loud, you own the problem instead of them.
08 — The system
Where it all gets written down
If it isn't written down, it didn't happen. One Asana task per rep, updated live during the meeting — not reconstructed afterward.
ARolling agenda+
Both of you add items between sessions. The rep's items go first. Anything not covered rolls to the next meeting instead of disappearing.
BDiscussion notes+
What was actually said — their floor, the deals reviewed, the decisions made. Short bullets, captured in the meeting.
CAction items+
Every commitment becomes a subtask with a named owner and a due date. Yours included. Review them out loud at the top of the next session — that review is what makes the whole system real.
DCoaching log+
A single piece of feedback is an opinion. The same feedback logged three times is a pattern — and a pattern is what justifies a development plan, a promotion, or a performance conversation that holds up.
What belongs in it:
- Date and the specific observation — call, deal, or handoff
- The feedback you gave, in the words you used
- The rep's response and their stated commitment
- Skills they asked to develop, not just gaps you identified
- Evidence of progress — or evidence that nothing changed
- Recognition, logged with the same discipline as correction
Not every entry is a mistake. Most should be developmental. A rep who wants to get better at multi-threading belongs in the log exactly the same way as a rep who keeps skipping discovery. Treat it as a growth record, not a discipline file — or people will start managing what you write down instead of how they perform.
Turning a pattern into a mutual action plan
When the log shows the same theme three times, stop giving feedback and build a plan. Mutual means the rep writes at least half of it.
The quarterly growth conversation
Once a quarter, replace Track 2 with this. It's the cheapest retention tool you have and almost nobody uses it. One rule: never ask about aspiration unless you intend to do something with the answer.
09 — Practice
Four calls you'll actually get
Pick the move you'd make. You'll get the reasoning either way — including why the near-miss answers are near misses.
10 — Standards
Non-negotiables
These are standards, not suggestions. Asana 1:1 tasks will be spot-checked — a missing coaching log is a management performance issue, not an admin oversight.
Your commitments
Tick these off as you set them up. Progress is saved on this device.
Then manage the performance.
Sources: Larry Senn, The Mood Elevator (2017); Gallup, State of the American Manager; Harvard Business Review; Quantum Workplace. Statistics are drawn from widely republished secondary reporting rather than the original reports — verify before citing externally.