Building on the last episode’s topic of meetings, the focus here is on our one-on-one meetings. In his book, 'Glad We Met: The Art and Science of One-to-One Meetings,' Steven Rogelberg discusses how these meetings can be practical, personal, and developmental. We can also think of these as the four Ps of care—process, progress, product, and person. Drawing on insights from Rogelberg’s book, along with some timely recent posts, I draw attention to the role of empathy, authentic communication, and regular, intentional meetings in supporting PhD students, postdocs, and research assistants. Practical tips include setting regular meeting cadences, being attentive and present, and ensuring a respectful and effective meeting environment. These are all skills we can work on to better support the practical, personal and developmental in our 1-1 meetings.

Overview:

00:29 Introduction to Effective Meetings

01:55 The Importance of One-on-One Meetings

03:25 The Four Ps of Care in Meetings

04:14 Practical Aspects of Supervisory Meetings

05:06 Caring for the Person in Meetings

05:35 Skills for Effective Meetings

09:12 Student Contributions to Meetings

11:01 Preparation and Presence in Meetings

12:18 Time Management and Respect in Meetings

13:23 Listening and Asking Good Questions

14:25 The Cadence of Meetings

17:55 Practical Suggestions for Meeting Environments

19:14 Career Conversations and Resources

20:20 Conclusion: The Art, Heart, and Science of Meetings

24:02 End

Related links:

Steven Rogelberg's webpage, LinkedIn profile, and Meeting resources and previous CAL episode on Transforming Academic Meetings

Book: Rogelberg, S. G. (2024). Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1: 1 Meetings. Oxford University Press.

Recent posts mentioned:

#116 - 6 Communication Strategies to Get What You Need From Your PhD Advisor (Without Being Annoying), Emmanuel Tsekleves , PhDtoProf Newsletter 1 Oct 2025

A toolkit to foster great career conversations, Rachel Chin and Rachel Herries, Auditorium Blog, 7 Oct 2025

Related Changing Academic Life episodes:

Oscar Trimboli (Part 1) on being better listeners 

Oscar Trimboli (Part 2) on how to listen deeply 

Michael Bungay Stanier on the power of curiosity and taming the advice monster 

RW (solo) Asking good questions, empowering good people

Welcome to Changing Academic Life.

2

I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick, and this is

a podcast series where academics and

3

others share their stories, provide

ideas, and provoke discussions about what

4

we can do individually and collectively

to change academic life for the better.

5

I want to talk about meetings some more,

and I know meetings can sound like a

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pretty uninspiring topic, but think about

how much time we spend in meetings and

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I really appreciated the conversation

with Steven Rogelberg that was the

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last podcast episode that went out.

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He shared amazing insights about

how to make our meetings better

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when we are doing sort of larger

team meetings or faculty meetings.

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And a large number of our other

meetings as academics, as researchers

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are one-on-one meetings, aren't they?

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And they, they could be meetings with our

PhD students or our postdocs or research

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assistants, and various other people

that we may be in some perhaps managerial

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and or mentoring type relationship with.

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And have you ever thought very

intentionally about those meetings and

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what they're for and how you run them?

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Steven Rogelberg is also an expert on

one-to-one meetings, and he published

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a book in 2024 that I also wanted to

discuss with him but we ran out of time.

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And it's called Glad We Met the Art

and Science of One-to-One meetings.

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So I thought I would draw on his

book and just provide some general

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reflections on our one-to-one meetings.

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I loved his description of one-on-ones.

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Now he's talking about one-on-ones in

a very general sense, and a lot of

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his research on one-on-one meetings

has been conducted more in business

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context rather than university context.

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But nonetheless, I think there's

a lot of relevance and that we can

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learn from what he talks about.

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And he talks about one-on-one

meetings as being practical,

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personal, and developmental.

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And their role is to discuss topics

such as wellbeing, motivation,

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productivity, roadblocks,

priorities, role and team alignment,

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development and career planning.

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And his research also points out

or highlights that when we do

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one-on-ones well, they have the

potential to dramatically alter the

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work lives and career progression of

the people that we are working with.

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And I'm interested in his description

of one-on-one meetings because in

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the German speaking German language

context, the language around supervisor

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is a German word called Betreuer.

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Appropriately adjusted

for gender, of course.

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And what I like about that term,

Betreuer, is it draws attention

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to elements of care and I like to

unpack that care in terms of four Ps.

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Care for the process, care for

progress, care for the product,

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and care for the person.

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And we can see how, in terms of the

more practical aspects that Steven

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talks about, process, progress, and

product are very much part of that

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practical getting stuff done bucket.

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You know so we're usually pretty

good as supervisors, as advisors,

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as line managers, as mentors on.

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Processes of doing research, and that

could be out understanding methods

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and teaching people about that, or

promoting research integrity and so on.

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We also, I think, also have a very good

idea of progress, what could be expected

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progression over the course of a PhD.

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And I know that different countries

have different timelines, timeline

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expectations, and this is where , at

least in my experience, many universities

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have got better in providing templated

support for things like progress

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reports or identifying milestones , and

having sort of some regular check-ins.

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And of course, the practical care for the

product is an obvious thing, especially

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for a PhD supervision or advising because

we're ultimately wanting to support

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the student in producing their thesis.

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But what about the person, the care

for the person, that picks up on

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Steven's personal and development

and career planning aspects.

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I don't know about you, but I've

never really been taught about how

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to do that care for the person.

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And it often comes down to

what are the individual skills

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that, that someone might bring.

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But I think we could do

better with this as well.

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And one of the things that Steven talks

about in his book around, you know,

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what's needed for, how do we go about

helping to meet personal needs of people?

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And it's things like, how do we

listen well and respond with empathy?

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How do we communicate really

authentically and transparently?

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How do we engage and involve

the people that we're working

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with in those conversations?

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How kind and supportive are we?

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And how much do we show up ourselves

in, in demonstrating appropriate

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sort of vulnerability and, and just

being what it means to be human?

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Because we're all human.

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And one of the things I think about

the sort of be kind and supportive is

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often there's a connotation of it's

all a little bit namby pamby and we

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avoid the hard conversations 'cause

that wouldn't be kind and supportive.

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But I think that's anything but the case.

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I think being kind and supportive is being

brave enough to have the more difficult

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conversations that we might need to have

or to give difficult feedback to someone.

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But it's more the mindset

that we come with in terms of

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how we show up and the care.

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Again, that sort of coming back to

that notion of care, the care with

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which we engage in those conversations

and deliver difficult feedback.

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Part of this care as well, I think is in

care for the person, is really taking

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some time to think about and get to

know who this person is in front of us.

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Not trying to make them into mini mes.

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Or to make them conform to some

stereotype of what might be the stellar

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researcher, but rather, who are they?

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What do they care about?

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What are their values and strengths?

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How are, how do they prefer to work?

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What are their self-sabotage

strategies and so on?

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What are their own

ambitions for their career?

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And I think that's one of the key

skills, especially in the early

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stages of a PhD, is having a mindset

that is really open and curious and

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wanting to get to know the person.

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And as the supervisor, advisor, manager,

mentor we can also play a really important

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role in helping out people get to know

their own values and strengths, et cetera,

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by the ways in which we observe and notice

and give feedback, the ways in which we

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reflect back to them what we see them

doing well at what we value about them.

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So we can play such an important

role in helping people develop a

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sense of their own identity and

develop a sense of self-esteem.

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And that doesn't mean that it's avoiding,

uh, the fact that, uh, PhD process

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can be challenging and difficult, or

that there can be ups and downs, but

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that you recognize the person in the

middle of it going through all this.

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On the other side of this, he also talks

about what the person, the other person,

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coming to the meeting can contribute.

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What their role is.

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And he talks about things like, knowing

what you need to come out of that meeting.

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Being curious, building rapport, actively

engaging, communicating well, being

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part of problem solving, being prepared

to ask for help in a constructive way

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and ask for feedback and receiving

feedback well, and expressing gratitude.

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In fact, I think that list can

go for both people, both parties.

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It's not just for the student.

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And it is interesting that coincidentally

a recent newsletter from Emmanuel

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Tsekleves who has this wonderful

newsletter called PhD to Prof and,

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and his newsletter number 116.

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I'll put a link to this webpage for you.

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He talks also about how students

can contribute to maximizing

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the value from their meetings.

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And his list of guidelines and suggested

points are to come to meetings with

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specific questions and proposed solutions,

to send meeting agendas 24 hours in

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advance, like just even a brief email,

to provide some regular progress updates

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between meetings, if that's been agreed.

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Being prepared to ask for feedback

on specific comments, not just

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general request for feedback, like

how am I doing, uh, ways in which

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the student can take initiative.

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And also acknowledging the

advisor's feedback and reporting

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back on implementation.

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So you can see a whole mirroring of

what Emmanuel has talked about there

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and what Steven talks about in his book.

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So apart from the more practical

preparation for meetings, like

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setting up an agenda or thinking about

specific questions or focus to come

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with, I think there's also some really

important prep that we often don't

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think about, and that's how we prep

ourselves to show up in the meeting

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to be fully attentive and present.

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And for me, sometimes that would play

out, especially if I was really busy

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or doing back to back meetings, which

isn't advisable of course, but just

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taking a couple of minutes, couple

of seconds just to refocus, and that

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might mean just taking a couple of

deep breaths, just checking in with my

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body for any tension and making sure

that I'm not distracted by other things

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going on, so my notifications turned

off and so on, and enabling me just

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to sit and literally fully face the

person that I'm trying to meet with.

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And I think that's something that's really

important in terms of how we role model

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as well, what it means to support someone

and what it means to care for the person,

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what it means to respect the person.

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That we put in the effort to show up well.

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Another part of respect that Steven

talks about quite a lot is the importance

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of just ending meetings on time.

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And this is something that I could've been

a lot better at, which was my timekeeping.

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'cause I'd often overrun a

meeting, which would mean the next

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meeting would not start on time.

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And I see now how that can

actually be really disrespectful.

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And so putting in the effort to really

think about how to better manage time

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and how to manage your own energy

so that you build in a little bit

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of space between meetings to do that

reconnecting, refocusing, being able to

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be fully present for the next meeting.

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Another set of skills that I think

is really important to develop.

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And again, they're not skills

that I've often heard talked about

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because often the emphasis on any

training or any support structures

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are around the, the more practical

process product progress elements.

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But the skills of when we're

in the meeting, what does

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good listening look like

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and how do we ask good questions?

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One of the challenges I think especially

for supervisors is we want to be helpful

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and we're often also very busy and we can

jump into advice mode much too quickly.

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And sometimes that can often mean

giving advice to the wrong problem

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because we haven't spent enough

time really trying to listen deeply.

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Because we know that often what people

will come with isn't the real problem.

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And we need to probe a little

bit more with some good open

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questions to get to that.

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. Towards this, I will put some links

to some previous episodes, with

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Michael Bungay Stanier about asking

good questions and, and talking about

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the advice monster and also with

Oscar Trimboli about how to listen

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well and the importance of listening.

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One of the big ahha moments in

reading Steven's book as well was

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about the cadence of meetings,

how often we have meetings.

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And I know that many of our

institutions will have guidelines

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about requiring meetings, at least,

whether it be once a month or once a

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fortnight or whatever, or once a week.

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Where I worked, we didn't have those fixed

guidelines and I always thought that,

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you know, we would start off with more

regular meetings, and then as a student

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got some momentum or the researcher

got some momentum, it was enough for

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me to have more irregular meetings and

to rely on having an open door policy.

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But Steven's research clearly

points to the value of having a

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fixed meeting time at a regular

interval that's in the calendar.

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His research actually supports a

weekly cadence, but obviously you can

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interpret that specific to your context.

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And some of the arguments around this

are to do with bias, for example.

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If we have more irregular meetings

or ad hoc meetings, we have a bias to

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meet more often with people we like.

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There can also be an issue

with people disappearing.

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You know, one of the comments

or questions I get asked often at

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workshops we run on supervision are

about how to keep people progressing

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or what happens when they don't

show up or they're not progressing.

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And I think having a fixed

commitment to a regular meeting

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can be a really good first step.

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And making it okay to come and

say, I'm struggling at the moment.

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And that goes to some of those

personal and interpersonal skills

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about how we show up and how we listen

and how we support, and how we role

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model that it's okay to struggle.

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And just having the fixed meeting

means if we discuss all of the range

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of things that we can talk about that

aren't just the practical, but can

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also pick up on the personal, the

developmental, the career planning.

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If the person doesn't particularly have

anything practical to discuss right

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now, that can be a great time to say,

let's pick up on some of the discussions

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about your development plans or your,

you know, career thinking and how we can

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help set you up to the, any next steps.

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His advice also is that we

don't have to necessarily

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schedule meetings to be an hour.

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We may have a default time, whatever it

might be, in the calendar, whether it's

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50 minutes or half an hour or 40 minutes,

but we can also just, shorten the meeting

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to whatever we need to discuss that day.

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But he suggests strongly, and again

his research is fully supportive of

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this, not canceling meetings, but

at least still connecting in some

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way so that it becomes just a regular

habit, it's about relationship

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building and care for the person . It

isn't just the practical aspects.

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He also has some really sort of

very practical suggestions as

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well that's worth thinking about.

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You know, like thinking more

intentionally about where we hold

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meetings, the level of privacy, even

things like air quality, noise levels,

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what resources we have available.

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You know, if we're at a particular

part of a project where we are

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brainstorming problems and solutions.

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Maybe a coffee shop isn't the

best place, but maybe an office

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that has a whiteboard that we can

map things out or mind map ideas.

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Or if someone wants to come and

talk about things that are more

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personal, again, like the coffee

shop might not be the best idea.

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His research also points to the

fact that if we need to be in more

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creative mode, that actually walking

meetings can be very effective for

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creativity and for generating more

ideas and more creative ideas.

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His research suggests that, if we

are dealing with more substantive

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or deeper issues that face-to-face is

preferable to virtual, being online.

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So in terms of the more

developmental career oriented

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discussions in our meetings.

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Coincidentally as well.

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There's a great blog post from the

Auditorium blog, which is hosted

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by Kay Guccione at University of

Glasgow, and this is an article

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with a, with a link to a toolkit.

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On how to foster great career

conversations, and it's written by Dr.

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Rachel Chin and Dr.

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Rachel Harrys.

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And again, I'll put a link to this because

it is just a great set of resources there

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in this toolkit that very practically

will support supervisors in walking

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through the sorts of conversations

You may have had less training in.

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Like how to help people identify

what their values are, what their

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strengths are, what a good career

path might look like for them, what

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are their non-negotiables and so on.

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And then how might they go about

doing some of the experiments or

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explorations around future career ideas.

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So I'll put a link to that webpage

and their toolkit because I think

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it's a really great support.

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And in finishing, I also want to

pick up on a point that Steven

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said about our faculty meetings and

other meetings, which is let's make

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sure as part of being intentional

to have a meeting about meetings.

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Let's talk more about

how we work together.

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So that we can explicitly set up the

shared expectations and commitments

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,where you can explain why you want

to do fixed meetings and what are

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the options for using that time.

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What are the sort of things that

are okay to talk about or not?

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What are you expecting from the person in

terms of preparation as well as in follow

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up and accountability and reporting back.

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And it can also be a time just to check

in about how's it been working so far?

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What's working well,

what's not working so well?

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What might we want to do

differently moving forward?

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Especially recognizing, say, for a PhD,

that as people progress through the

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PhD, it creates different needs and

requirements, doesn't it, for support.

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So Steven's book is called Glad We Met the

Art and Science of One-to-One Meetings.

273

And I'd actually like to think about

it more as the art, heart and science

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of meetings because there's so much

about the, you know, the critical

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role that we can play as supervisors,

mentors, managers, research leaders.

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In not just delivering on the work,

but helping people step into their

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own identity as researchers with

more confidence and awareness.

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Where we can help people develop into

really great researchers or the developed

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career paths that they care about.

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And it's such a privileged

position to be in.

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It's one of the main reasons.

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If I think about what's my why for being

a researcher academic, yes, there's stuff

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about the science and the research, but my

big why was much more about working with

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really clever people and the privilege

of helping create environments in which

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people can grow and develop and bring

their best selves to do their best work.

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So I hope this provided some random,

thinking points so that you can

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step into supervision, meetings,

management meetings more intentionally

288

with the care for both the practical

and the personal and developmental.

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You can find the summary notes, a

transcript and related links for this

290

podcast on www.changingacademiclife.com.

291

You can also subscribe to Changing

Academic Life on iTunes, Spotify

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. And I'm really hoping that we can

widen the conversation about how

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we can do academia differently.

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And you can contribute to this by rating

the podcast and also giving feedback.

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