This article was originally released Business Insider.
This essay is based on a conversation with Jade Bonacolta, a 31-year-old in Miami, who began her profession in LinkedIn and is currently the head of selling in North America in Google. Her history of employment and promotion was verified by Business Insider. Below are edited in terms of length and clarity.
After completing Columbia University in 2015 He landed on LinkedIn In San Francisco.
In six and a half years I used to be in LinkedIn before joining Google in 2022, I used to be promoted five times, starting as a collaborator in a business leadership program and leaving the head of selling of corporate technology.
Many of my promotions got here from the way I dealt with mine One -on -one meetings with my manager.
Preparing reading for my one on one
Most people enter into one, adopting a more passive approach, expecting that their manager will present them and tell them what to do. But managers often have five or more people teams, so weekly meetings with each of them could be a lot to juggle.
I noticed that my first manager would generally ask me about the same things during every phone – “How did he go this week? What do you work next week and where do you need help?” I knew I wanted to be more proactive and increase the performance of those meetings.
I began spending an hour earlier, writing what I called “reading”. I’d develop a easy e -mail with three sections: which went well for me this week, on what I focus on next week, and one recent idea or interesting innovation that could be suggested for our team.
I’d send him to my manager before we met and bring my copy to the meeting to help in conducting our conversation.
My manager told me that he decided extremely helpful before reading; They made our conversations were much more productive and helped him completely aware of my work. He found this format useful that he asked the remainder of my team members to follow the strategy of them one on one.
3 things that are effective reading before the meeting 1: 1
1. What went well
First, I created the “Wins” folder and every time I won all week, I added it to the folder.
For example, if working with a sales team, I received an e -mail message from one of the leaders, saying: “I am impressed by the questions you asked my team and the way you gave the value”, this e -mail would go straight to the Wins folder. Then I’d get out of this folder by making my e-mail before reading to my manager.
I understood that I could do the best job in the world, but it didn’t matter if the right people knew about it; If I wanted to advance, I it had to be visible.
I’d also save all my winnings in the document and made them available to my manager to make it easier to write performance reviews and build an argument for my promotion.
2. What am I working on
Managers are often expected to tell their employees what to work on. However, it may possibly even be helpful and helpful if employees show proactivity.
After sharing what I did a week earlier, I’d say: “Here’s what I think I should work next week.” Some of them were ongoing projects, while others were recent initiatives I introduced.
As for the projects, I had a fairly strong instinct in the direction in which I wanted to take a profession and I did The promotion I wanted Sure for my manager. I asked them: “Are there any projects that I could work on, which will allow me to start building these skills?”
I also tried to predict where I may wish the help of my manager. I’d ask myself: “What could go wrong next week?” And “What person do I have to connect with next week that I may need to introduce to my manager?”
In this manner I could ask my questions immediately at the meeting, not all week.
I also tried to come up with solutions proactively, and not only present problems.
For example, I can tell my manager: “It seems that we have to get our budget to this date, so there is a way I can send it at the beginning of this week to make sure that this date will not sneak us?”
3. One recent idea
In my initial reading I will even share one recent idea.
Throughout the week I paid attention to the things that my manager recognized the frustrating or ineffectiveness that appeared over the past week – things that had easy corrections.
Then, at my meetings, one on one, I’d suggest an idea or solve a solution to these problems. I noticed that the ideas didn’t have to be big. In fact, by presenting a recent idea, the key is to make him a small one, because you do not want to take unhealthy work and burn or neglect the foremost parts of your work.
Once my team and I did a really great job, but no one in our wider organization knew it. As I wanted be more lean into the marketing worldI asked my manager: “And if we started a very fast, regular newsletter?”
My manager agreed.
I accepted the property of this text. Every month I consolidated and sent the newsletter to the whole organization, sharing updates about what our team is doing. It was easy, and other teams didn’t do it, and I reached the leaders of other teams.
When these leaders contacted my manager about how great the newsletter was, my manager replied: “It was her idea. I didn’t even ask her for it; she just volunteered to take it.”
Spending an hour preparation was value giving my manager visibility
I repeated this process in every recent role I took and every recent manager I had on Google. My managers loved it and I received amazing feedback when I did it.
Even in my role at a higher level, my management team deeply appreciates my weekly status updates and recent ideas for the team. They treat me as a thought partner, not only a direct report.
The full use of one -on -one meetings gives your leaders greater visibility in the whole work you do.