The Demand

This week, you schedule a genuine one-on-one with every direct report and protect it from the motion of the shift. If you let the one-on-one collapse into a performance check-in or let the shift cancel it, the cast member carrying something will keep carrying it until it costs the Guest experience or the cast relationship.

The Work

Build your [Empathy Infrastructure] this week.

  1. Put a one-on-one on the calendar for every cast member you lead directly. Protect the time block the same way you protect a reservation.
  2. Open each one-on-one with “what are you carrying right now?” and mean it. Do not redirect to task status in the first five minutes.
  3. When behavior is confusing, ask “what’s going on for you right now?” before you ask “what’s wrong with your performance?”
  4. Note what “carrying something” looks like for each individual cast member. One person goes quiet. Another gets short. Write down the individual signal so you can read it next time without asking.

By Friday, every cast member on your roster has had a protected one-on-one this week, not a hallway check-in.