Resistant Directs In One on Ones - Chapter 1 - (Hall Of Fame Guidance)

This guidance recommends how to have effective One on Ones with directs who are initially resistant.

One of the most frequently-asked questions from managers who have not yet tried One on Ones on a regular basis is, what about the direct who doesn't want to have them?

Frankly, there's a part of us that discounts the idea behind the question. [Don't worry - we're still going to address it. ;-) ] There certainly are some managers who, after having bought into an idea, will then project themselves forward and attempt to figure out problems they can foresee happening. But we think far more of those managers who ask this question are simply creating artificial roadblocks around the idea that this won't work for me, or, my team won't tolerate this. We even talked to a manager once who told us his team would "never" go for them after several of his directs were already doing them with their directs because of our podcasts. That's a great example of handling cognitive dissonance - being willing to create a truly artificial reality to support the worldview you want to have.

But okay, what can the rest of us do when someone doesn't want to professionally respond to the opportunity to communicate regularly?