One-on-ones can be awkward. You meet once a week (you are meeting weekly, right?!) and have to figure out how to make the time worthwhile. Much is made of how reports can (and should) drive these meetings. Regardless, I find it instructive to ask these two questions, typically at the top of our session.

Asking about morale opens you to feedback. Low morale could be related to the slate of projects you’ve asked a report to take on, the direction the business is headed, or even something you said to them in passing. Often people don’t know how their morale is, so they just need to work through their thoughts. Listening to what someone is feeling and why they’re feeling it allows you the space to hear where they’re at and how you can improve it for them.

Asking about bandwidth is about seeing how much someone can take. We’re prone to making assumptions here: As a manager, I hear “I know you’re really busy but…” all the time in passing, but does the asker know I’m actually that busy? Learning how to say no is well covered in professional settings, so part and parcel with that is that each of us as adults is able to hear our different options for how to adjust our priorities in real time. Even though I ask this question every one-on-one to every report every week, the answer I get each time is often more surprising than not. Very frequently, I learn they are hungry to take on more or, if they’re slammed, grateful I at least checked in.

These two questions also help more junior people learn how to have an effective one-on-one. Asking about morale first especially forces them to consider the state of themselves, and if there’s anything they need to talk about there, while bandwidth allows space to discuss why they’re feeling light, overwhelmed, or whatever and how to work through that together without the meeting devolving into project status updates.

Perhaps most importantly, these two prompts offer an easy on-ramp to a pleasant two-way conversation with another person, regardless of how long you’ve known them or the nature of your relationship. Opening with curiosity invites the other person to drive the conversation. And what more do people want in their daily lives than to feel heard?