Page 202 - The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership

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One-to-one interviews

Such meetings have the common characteristics that they are
(usually) pre-arranged, require preparation and have a definite
purpose.
Unless it happens to be a dismissal, one-to-one interviews require
that:
• both parties know the purpose of the meeting (notified in
advance)

• information to be exchanged should be considered in advance
and answers at the meeting should be honest

• as interviewer you should keep control: stick to the point at the
issue and the time allocated and give the other party adequate
time to talk (prompting by questions if necessary).

The structure of the interview should be as follows:
• the opening – setting the scene, the purpose and a relaxed
atmosphere
• the middle – stay with the purpose, listen, cover the agenda
• the close – summary, agree action, end naturally not abruptly
on a positive note.

Sometimes it is useful to ask the right questions to obtain the
required information/exchange. Questions to use are the open-
ended, prompting, probing, or what-if questions, whilst the ones
to avoid (unless being used for specific reasons) are the yes/no, closed,
leading or loaded questions.
In performance appraisal interviews the aim should be to give
constructive criticism in the following way:
1 In private

2 Without preamble
3 Simply and accurately

192 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership