25 Questions to Ask in Your Next 1:1 (and How to Actually Follow Up)

Most 1:1s go wrong the same way. You sit down, ask "how's it going," get "fine," and spend the next twenty minutes filling the silence with your own status update. Nothing bad happens. Nothing good happens either.

The fix is rarely a better meeting format. It's having a real question ready - one that fits the week the person actually had. A question bank gives you that. You don't have to be a coach to ask a good question. You just have to ask it.

Here are 25 to pull from, grouped by the moment you're in, followed by the part almost everyone skips: what to do with the answers afterward.

Questions for a first check-in with someone new

1. What made you say yes to this job?
2. How do you like to get feedback - written, in the moment, or saved for later?
3. What did your last manager do that worked for you?
4. What's one thing that's already confusing about the role?
5. What do you want to be true about your work six months from now?

Questions for a rough week

1. What's the hardest part of your week right now?
2. What did you have to work around that you shouldn't have had to?
3. Where are you stuck waiting on someone else?
4. What's the thing you keep putting off, and what's making it easy to put off?
5. What would make next week feel lighter?

Questions for a project that has stalled

1. Walk me through where this actually stands - not where the plan says it stands.
2. What changed since we last talked about it?
3. Is this blocked, or is it just not a priority right now?
4. What's the smallest version of this we could ship?
5. What do you need from me that you haven't asked for yet?

Questions for when things are going well

1. What part of this are you proudest of?
2. What did you figure out on your own that I should know about?
3. What's working that we should do more of?
4. Who else on the team deserves credit here?
5. What's the next thing you want to sink your teeth into?

Questions about growth and the long view

1. What skill do you want to be better at by the end of the quarter?
2. What kind of work do you want more of? Less of?
3. When did you last feel like you were learning something?
4. What would you want to be doing a year from now?
5. What's one thing I could do differently that would help you most?

Don't ask all 25. Ask the right three.

Twenty-five questions is a menu, not a script. Pick two or three that match the week, then listen longer than feels comfortable. The silence after a real question is usually where the honest answer shows up.

The same bank works whether you're a first-time lead or fifteen years in. You can run through it by feel, or ask Mora to draft a suggested agenda for each person before you sit down.

The part that actually matters: follow up

A good question is worth nothing if the answer disappears into a notebook you never open again. The managers people remember aren't the ones with the best questions. They're the ones who bring up last month's answer in this month's meeting.

Three habits make follow-through possible:

Write it down while you're still in the room. Not a transcript - just the promise, the worry, the thing they said they'd try. If you wait until the end of the day, you'll remember the topic and lose the detail.

Give each note a home. Notes scattered across docs, sticky notes, and your inbox are notes you won't find. Keep them per person, in one place, so "what did we say last time" takes ten seconds instead of ten minutes.

Name the next step out loud before you leave. "So I'll get you the intro by Thursday, and you'll let me know if the deadline slips." A follow-up that isn't stated in the meeting is a follow-up that doesn't happen.

Make the next conversation easier than this one

You don't need a company rollout or a training program to run a better 1:1. You need a few good questions, a place to keep what you hear, and the discipline to bring it back up.

Mora is built for exactly that. It keeps your notes, goals, and follow-ups per report, keeps them private, and drafts a suggested agenda before each conversation - so you walk in already knowing what to ask. No seat math, no sales call. When you're ready for the next one, ask Mora to pull up what you said you'd do, and start there.