Hello everyone,

I asked a room of leaders a question last week: you know your one-to-ones matter… but if you’re honest, are you properly preparing for them?

They all smiled. Because they (and I) knew the answer.

So then I asked: if you could prepare properly, how much time could you realistically give it?

Same answer every time. Ten minutes.

And look, that is the reality at this level. There’s always something else shouting for your attention.

For years, my advice was simple: protect those ten minutes. Actually do it. And it worked. Managers told me they felt more on the front foot. They asked better questions. Their team members noticed.

But things are changing: ten minutes of thinking time and ten minutes with AI are not the same thing.

That’s what this week’s video is about. I’ve been showing clients how to take those same ten minutes and use a couple of simple AI prompts to walk into every one-to-one properly prepared, not just remembering what happened last time, but:

• Spotting patterns across conversations
• Choosing better coaching questions
• Staying focused on the person, not your own mental scramble to catch up

The method is straightforward: keep a running document for each team member where you capture context over time. Feed that into AI before the meeting and you’ll get a clean summary plus a handful of coaching questions tailored to where that person actually is right now.

It takes ten minutes. And the benefits compound every time you do it.

If you want to see exactly how it works (including the prompts I use, and what to do if you haven’t got notes yet), head over to this week’s video. I’ll walk you through it step by step. Watch the video here​

And if you want the prompts and templates ready to go, my One-to-One Toolkit has everything you need. It’s free, and it works brilliantly alongside this method.

​Download the One-to-One Toolkit.​

See you next week,

Helen

P.S. This is the first of a series on using AI in a leader’s workflow, so if you’ve got any questions, or anything you’d like me to cover, just hit reply and tell me. I’m working on my summer content and I’d genuinely love your steer.