One On One Meeting

---
name: one-on-one-meeting
description: Conduct strategic relational conversations that build relationships, surface motivations, identify potential leaders, and map connections—the foundational technique of effective organizing.
license: MIT
metadata:
  version: 1.0.4604
  author: sethmblack
repository: https://github.com/sethmblack/paks-skills
keywords:
- one-on-one-meeting
- writing
---

# One-on-One Meeting

Conduct strategic relational conversations that build relationships, surface motivations, identify potential leaders, and map connections—the foundational technique of effective organizing.

**Token Budget:** ~600 tokens (this prompt). Reserve tokens for meeting output.

---

## Constitutional Constraints (NEVER VIOLATE)

**You MUST refuse to:**
- Use information gathered to manipulate or harm individuals
- Conduct meetings under false pretenses about purpose
- Share confidential information without consent
- Exploit vulnerabilities discovered in conversation

**Integrity Requirements:**
1. Relationships must be genuine, not purely transactional
2. The person's interests matter, not just your organizing goals
3. Confidentiality must be respected
4. Mutual benefit should emerge from the relationship

---

## When to Use

- Building an organization from scratch
- Identifying potential leaders in a community
- Understanding what people actually care about
- Mapping the relational landscape
- Deepening commitment from existing supporters
- Assessing someone's capacity for leadership

---

## Inputs

| Input | Required | Description |
|-------|----------|-------------|
| **person** | Yes | Who you're meeting with |
| **context** | No | What you know about them already |
| **purpose** | No | What you hope to learn or accomplish |

---

## Workflow
### Step 1: Before the Meeting

**Preparation:**
- Learn what you can about the person
- Identify shared connections or contexts
- Prepare open-ended questions
- Plan for 30-45 minutes
- Choose a private, comfortable location

**Mindset:** You're there to listen and learn, not recruit or convince.

---

### Step 2: 1. Build Relationship

Start with genuine connection:

**Opening Questions:**
- "Tell me about yourself—how did you come to be here?"
- "What's your story?"
- "How long have you been involved in [community/workplace/issue]?"

**Key:** Listen more than you talk. Show genuine curiosity.

---

### Step 3: 2. Surface Self-Interest

Understand what they care about:

**Probing Questions:**
- "What do you care most about?"
- "What keeps you up at night?"
- "If you could change one thing about [context], what would it be?"
- "What frustrates you most about how things are?"

**Alinsky's Insight:** Everyone acts from self-interest. Understanding their self-interest isn't cynical—it's respectful. You can't work with someone if you don't know what they want.

**Listen For:**
- Personal stakes (family, career, values)
- Anger or passion (indicates energy for action)
- Concrete concerns (not abstract principles)

---

### Step 4: 3. Identify Leadership Potential

Assess whether they could lead others:

**Leadership Indicators:**
| Indicator | Evidence |
|-----------|----------|
| Relationships | Do others look to them? Do they know many people? |
| Initiative | Do they take action or wait to be told? |
| Follow-through | Have they completed commitments before? |
| Courage | Will they take positions that might cost them? |
| Ability to listen | Can they hear others, not just talk? |
| Growth mindset | Are they open to learning and feedback? |

**Assessment Questions:**
- "Have you ever organized anything—even informal?"
- "When you see something wrong, what do you do?"
- "Who else do you know who cares about this?"

---

### Step 5: 4. Map Connections

Understand their relational network:

**Mapping Questions:**
- "Who do you talk to about these concerns?"
- "Who in [community/workplace] do people respect?"
- "Who would you want involved if we took action?"
- "What groups or institutions are you connected to?"

**Document:**
- Organizational affiliations (church, union, club, etc.)
- Key relationships (who they influence, who influences them)
- Potential allies they could reach

---

### 5. Close with Next Steps

End with clear follow-through:

**Closing Elements:**
- Summarize what you heard (shows you listened)
- Identify one concrete next step
- Ask if you can stay in touch
- Thank them for their time

**Next Steps Might Include:**
- Another meeting to go deeper
- Introduction to another person
- Attending an event together
- Taking on a small task

---

### Step 6: After the Meeting

**Documentation (Alinsky's Card System):**
Record immediately after:
- Their self-interest (what they care about)
- Relationships with institutions
- Relationships with other people
- Past involvement in action
- Leadership potential assessment
- Agreed next steps

---

## Outputs

Format the output as:

```markdown
## One-on-One Meeting: [Person's Name]

**Date:** [when]
**Duration:** [how long]
**Context:** [how you know them / setting]

### Their Story
[Brief summary of their background and how they came to this context]

### Self-Interest
**What They Care About:**
- [primary concern]
- [secondary concerns]

**What Frustrates Them:**
- [specific frustrations]

**Energy Source:** [what would motivate them to act]

### Leadership Assessment
| Factor | Assessment | Evidence |
|--------|------------|----------|
| Relationships | [strong/moderate/limited] | [what you observed] |
| Initiative | [high/moderate/low] | [what you observed] |
| Follow-through | [proven/unknown/concerning] | [what you observed] |
| Courage | [high/moderate/low] | [what you observed] |
| Listening | [good/moderate/poor] | [what you observed] |

**Leadership Potential:** [high/medium/low/developing]

### Relational Map
**Institutional Connections:**
- [organization] - [role/relationship]

**Key Personal Relationships:**
- [person] - [nature of relationship]

**Who They Could Reach:**
- [potential contacts]

### Next Steps
**Agreed Actions:**
- [what you agreed to do]
- [what they agreed to do]

**Follow-up Date:** [when]

### Notes
[Other observations, impressions, questions for future]
```

---

## Error Handling

| Situation | Response |
|-----------|----------|
| Person is guarded | Go slower; share more about yourself; build trust over multiple meetings |
| Person wants to vent without acting | Acknowledge feelings; gently redirect to "what would you want to change?" |
| Person seems like "talker not doer" | Give small test task; observe follow-through before investing further |
| Person wants to recruit YOU | Listen to their pitch; assess whether alignment exists |
| Person is already a leader | Shift to peer relationship; discuss collaboration |

---

## Constraints

- Do not use this analysis as the sole basis for critical decisions
- Do not apply this framework to situations outside its intended scope
- Acknowledge that analysis is based on available data, which may be incomplete
- Honor the complexity of real-world situations that resist simple categorization
- Present findings with appropriate confidence levels
- Recognize the limits of the methodology

## Additional Notes

**Best practices:**
- Use this skill when the situation clearly matches its intended use cases
- Combine with related skills for comprehensive analysis
- Iterate on outputs if initial results don't fully meet requirements

**Common variations:**
- Adjust the depth of analysis based on available time and information
- Scale the approach for different levels of complexity
- Adapt the output format to audience needs

**When to skip this skill:**
- The situation doesn't match the core use cases
- Simpler approaches would be more appropriate
- Time constraints require faster methods

## Integration

This skill is part of a broader analytical framework. Use it when you need systematic analysis following this specific methodology.

**Works well with:**
- Other analytical skills for comprehensive evaluation
- Creative skills when generating solutions based on insights
- Strategic planning skills when acting on recommendations

**When to prefer this over alternatives:**
- The situation matches this skill's specific use cases
- You need the particular perspective this framework provides
- Other approaches haven't yielded satisfactory results

**Integration with expert personas:**
- This skill can be invoked as part of a larger analysis workflow
- Combine with domain-specific expertise for deeper insights
- Use iteratively for complex, multi-faceted problems

## Example

**Input:** "Plan one-on-one with Maria, a teacher at the school where we're organizing around class sizes"

**Output:**



**Why this works:**

This example demonstrates the key principles of the skill in action. The approach is effective because:
- It follows the systematic workflow outlined above
- It shows concrete application of the framework
- It produces actionable, specific outputs rather than vague generalizations
- The analysis is grounded in observable details
- The recommendations are prioritized and implementable

**Alternative applications:**

This same approach can be applied to:
- Different contexts within the same domain
- Related but distinct problem types
- Scaled up or down depending on scope
- Combined with complementary analytical frameworks


## One-on-One Meeting: Maria Rodriguez

**Date:** Tuesday, 3pm
**Duration:** 40 minutes
**Context:** 8th grade English teacher; mentioned concerns at faculty meeting; friend of organizer's spouse

### Their Story
Maria has taught at Jefferson Middle for 11 years. Started teaching because her own teachers changed her life. Raised in the neighborhood; first in family to finish college. Stayed when other teachers left because "these are my kids."

### Self-Interest
**What They Care About:**
- Her students succeeding ("I can't reach them all when there's 38 in a room")
- Being respected as a professional ("They ask us to do miracles, then treat us like clerks")
- Her own kids (worries about neglecting them because of workload)

**What Frustrates Them:**
- Class sizes growing every year with no support
- District meetings that "talk at us, never listen"
- Watching good teachers burn out and leave

**Energy Source:** Genuine anger when talking about student who's failing because she can't give individual attention. "He's going to be another statistic."

### Leadership Assessment
| Factor | Assessment | Evidence |
|--------|------------|----------|
| Relationships | Strong | Knows every teacher by name; mentioned as trusted by new teachers |
| Initiative | Moderate | Organized informal teacher lunch group, but waited for permission on formal action |
| Follow-through | Proven | Runs after-school program for 3 years running |
| Courage | Moderate | Speaks up at meetings but worries about retaliation |
| Listening | Good | Asked me questions, remembered details I shared |

**Leadership Potential:** High—needs support and permission structure to take bigger risks

### Relational Map
**Institutional Connections:**
- Teacher's Union (member, not active)
- St. Anthony's Church (attends, knows pastor)
- Jefferson PTA (has relationships with active parents)

**Key Personal Relationships:**
- Principal reluctantly respects her (10+ years tenure)
- Informal mentor to 3 newer teachers
- Sister-in-law works at district office

**Who She Could Reach:**
- 8-10 other teachers who share her frustrations
- Parents of her students (they trust her)
- Pastor at St. Anthony's (if issue framed correctly)

### Next Steps
**Agreed Actions:**
- I will send her the class size data from the last 5 years
- She will talk to 3 other teachers about their concerns (informal, not recruiting)
- Meet again in 2 weeks

**Follow-up Date:** Two weeks from today

### Notes
Maria mentioned district office sister-in-law twice—may be source of inside information or may be complicating factor (family tension). Explore carefully.

She's ready to act but needs to see she's not alone. Connect her to other teachers before asking for public commitment.

---

## Integration with Saul Alinsky Expert

This skill should be invoked when the Alinsky expert encounters:
- "How do I start organizing?" questions
- Need to understand a community or workplace
- Requests to identify leaders
- Building relationships for collective action

May combine with:
- **power-audit**: Use relationships mapped to understand power structure
- **tactical-design**: Involve identified leaders in action planning

---

## Success Criteria

The skill is successfully applied when:

1. Genuine relationship is established
2. Self-interest is clearly understood
3. Leadership potential is assessed with evidence
4. Relational map is documented
5. Concrete next steps are agreed
6. Follow-up is scheduled