I have 1 on 1s too and we talk about anything at all, including status updates if the employee wants too. Because it all builds a connection. It's like a coffee chat.
I think it works the best when it's completely open to anything at all.
I agree with you that if the worker wants to turn it into a status update, they should be allowed to.
However... why do they feel like turning it into a status update? Is it because the manager isn't sufficiently looped in to what's happening on a daily basis?
I have 30 minute 1:1’s every week with my team (8 engineers). I’m in weekly backlog grooming sessions, semi-weekly demos, retros and sprint planning and of course daily standups. I’m in weekly status calls with two separate customers and weekly prioritization calls with product. I’m in constant dozer mode trying to clear a path for my team to eliminate blockers, execute bullshit corp process and help them resolve issues hands-on. I have a team member in my ear 80% of the week and half of them still prefer to regurgitate status than have any kind of other conversation.
At times I’ll interrupt them and say ’this isnt a status call, this is your time to complain, vent, suggest, ask whatever you like and find a way for me to help you’. I always try to keep them upbeat and ask about the weekend, hobbies, etc. Not everybody wants that conversation i think.
That’s 100% perfectly fine for me as well if we’re starting from a baseline of you talking about what’s important to you. It’s unfortunate that we have to ration time like this but it ensures that folks who normally wouldn’t initiate a conversation have one initiated for them.
Have you tried building trust? The tone of your comment here makes me think you haven’t. If you build trust with people, they’ll just tell you things. If you just say they can tell you things, no rational employee will believe that. And pushing people to talk about their weekend or other aspects of their personal life is downright toxic IMO. Again, if you build trust and rapport, you won’t have to ask these rote, off-the-shelf questions that can put people into a wary state of mind.
+1. I'm certainly not keen on sharing anything personal with a manager. we're not friends. I'm not going to tell you how i got drunk and puked or whatever, that's not appropriate and it's not doing me any favors career wise.
Trust is the centerpiece of my job, I’m certain that I’m not perfect but it’s something I can use to contextualize every decision and steer towards the best answer.
I’m sure my words could evoke a notion of some bully creeping on employees but I am just trying to break habits. I don’t force anything and as others have mentioned sometimes a status update is exactly what folks want to discuss.
I would venture to suggest that they give you status updates instead of what you're really looking for because you have these meetings every week - how much is happening in the space of four and a half days since the last 1:1 that they can't deal with themselves or raise in the stand ups? Probably not a lot. And if you're looking for complaints, suggestions, etc., in 1:1s, then what are the retrospectives for? A former manager once asked me how frequently I wanted to have 1:1s with him, and my reply was never, but he insisted so I offered once a month and we ended up doing it fortnightly. I never felt like it was helpful.
Not to mention that as engineers, they probably value extended blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on being productive;
> 30 minute 1:1’s every week with my team (8 engineers). I’m in weekly backlog grooming sessions, semi-weekly demos, retros and sprint planning and of course daily standups
With respect, this sounds like hell to me. The only thing I would be complaining about is that you were tying me up in meetings so much that I couldn't get any actual work done.
And however friendly you are with your team members, you're still their manager and they probably don't feel close enough to freely share much of their personal lives with you - that's generally the nature of the relationship and there's nothing wrong with that.
A significant fraction of engineers, often the ones who are most deep into their work, have a tendency to just do a brain dump of what they're working on, just because that's what they've currently assembled in their heads. It isn't necessarily useful in a 1:1 but it seems almost involuntary, so I'm not sure it's good to stop them before they've gone through it. May just have to allocate more time to allow them to get through it to any other issues they might have.
ya.. if i was productive until 10 seconds before this meeting, then that's whats on my mind. im still solving things in my head and now im being pulled away from that.. for what?
i feel like managers are in a different world, jumping from meeting to meeting they don't get deep into things. as a SWE.. I'm balancing 100 little things in my head, deep in thought, solving away.
Honestly, I never know what to talk about on 1:1, so that's mostly what I do. I'm not having any particular issues and I'm communicating with the other team members if there is anything I need from them to do my work.
So what am I supposed to do in a situation like that? Nothing is really broken, so I don't have much of constructive points to bring up.
Right. Set a time limit but not an agenda. Let them be free to tell you anything even if you think it is unnecessary. They key is to build psychological rapport so that gradually he/she feels more comfortable to open up and start Trusting you.
because we have nothing else to say.
we don't need any help from you, the manager. the project is going fine, but you're our least helpful resource. I'll go to the subject matter expert if i need specific things answered.
I'm not fighting with any teammates. I'm not blocked. i was perfectly productive before this meeting, but now I'm interrupted.
we already talked about career development. we don't need to go over that every week.
really, I've got nothing.
maybe once in awhile I'll get miffed at a teammate that doesn't see my point of view but even then i don't expect a manager to do much. they're not keen on taking sides.
that's not to say i think my manager is useless. they're great, and i was much happier once i realized they basically work for me than i do for them. they're here to help and that's lovely, but aside from escalating cross team requests here and there, i really don't need much.
Great article, the intro captures the core reasons why I recently quit as an engineering manager at a multi-national aerospace company. It also rather succinctly underlines how Boeing end up with the 737 Max situation.
The author of the article Gary Hamel, has written a book elaborating on the theme named, Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them which you may find useful.
Also see Management: A Political Activity by Ted Stephenson.
If I were your manager, I'd then be using the time to try to get to know you on a personal level. Hobbies, weekends, family, etc. I'm sure this comes off as prying in an internet comment, but that's because I don't know you. It's completely natural to want to get to know the people around you in person. Sometimes that might mean I need to start telling you about myself to signal that it's ok to get personal.
If you don't do this, it becomes a transactional relationship, which is OK, but to me holds less potential than one based on mutual trust and understanding.
I used to have a boss who’d ask me to rate my company satisfaction with the company 1-10 at every 1:1. This always struck me as one of the laziest/misguided management moves I’ve encountered, and I’m sure he felt it was both accurate and clever. If you manage people, and don’t understand that basic power dynamics will always trump encouragements for “openness”, you are naive at best and willfully blind at worst.
One of things I always looked out for as manager (which I am not currently) was a change in feed-back I got. If it turned from open, direct and honest to tounge-in-cheek, carefully worded and limited, punctuated with various versions of "nothing to report" I took it as a sign something was wrong.
Obviously, this effect is much easier when you are not in a management position. Because of that I was usually borderline paranoid about these changes in 1:1s with my directs.
In small teams I found the way to have informal, spontaneous 1:1s very effective. The basis, so, always was regularly scheduled ones unless you just forget to have them.
EDIT: For sure every 1:1 is different, and every 1:1 with different people need to be run differently. Some people like to discuss private stuff, others want in-depth tech discussions. Sometimes 1:1s are over in 5 minutes, sometimes they take an hour. Be flexible, and never use anything said in a 1:1 "against" the other person.
Not to defend the constant ratings, but imagine managers are not in fact all stupid for a second, and that they realize the power dynamic is there. You still need to do the same job and fulfill the expectations of your own manager, as a manager. It's easy to assume stupidity, and I'm sure there's plenty dumb moves made, but what you find cringy another report finds cool and easy. I bet there are people who would love a no fluff rating and be done vs a bullshit 10 mins of talk where in the end the manager still makes a mental note of your face next to a 7/10. Anyone who manages people sees completely different reactions from different people to exactly the same thing, so that isn't surprising. But sometimes engineers adopt a cynical view of it all where because you don't like something it must mean nobody does.
> imagine managers are not in fact all stupid for a second
I don’t really see where the commenter implied this.
To support their stance, I have also had lots of managers at various-sized companies (FAANG incl), who didn’t understand the inherent 1:1 power dynamic. They would expect full honesty, while covering up anything above my pay-grade.
Very few people can be fully open with their Managers; it is inbuilt into the hierarchy and nothing to do with stupidity. It is the Manager's job to be aware of it and then devise techniques for getting around it and/or make allowances for it.
Exactly this. As an employee, in this situation, you are always one step away from saying something to the person who can make your life miserable if they take offence. At no point am I ever open in these things, always guarded and watchful of what I'm saying because of who I'm saying it to. It's a corporate pipe dream to think otherwise.
I don't know. It would be bad to have that replace other real conversations, but i could see it being easier for some people to just answer a 6 instead of a 7 instead of the IC explicitly bringing up out of nowhere that they are slightly less happy thus week than last week for unclear reasons that they themselves don't understand.
Heard one of the Warby Parker founders speak once, and he mentioned a similar process at their company. I believe once a week all employees anonymously rated their satisfaction 1-10. He was very bought into the thought that "happy employees = productive employees". He said the weekly ratings was a very powerful tool for the executive team to get a feel for how the team was feeling, and if they could push harder or needed to ease up. Compared with the alternative of waiting to see resignation numbers go up, seemed like a pretty brilliant idea to me.
This was many years ago so apologies if some details are a bit off, but the gist of the story has stuck with me over the years.
power dynamics vary. some developers can always easily get another job, so they have a lot of power. in a case like that, asking the developer to rate their satisfaction seems normal & good, like a customer satisfaction survey.
I've led large orgs and fucked it up a few times in the beginning.
My #1 best recommendation for those starting out is to always tell your direct reports that this is their time and you guys can talk about whatever is on your mind. Like the article says, make sure you verbalize this is not a status update meeting. What's obvious to you is not obvious to them.
If you guys run out of topics to chop up, I also recommend asking for advice from your direct report about any subject that's on your mind. It builds rapport.
I also think the managers should come with conversation starters to these meetings. Be curious about what your reports do and proactively ask them about something specific they did last month and anything they can do to improve. Coming with a blank slate because you think you are doing someone a favor by giving them your time will always lead to status updates or awkward silences.
The conversation starter needs to be chosen carefully though. If it's a question about a project, it may be easily construed as dissatisfaction on the progress of the project, when the manager is neutrally curious.
one good way to 'get the conversation going', as well as provide invaluable feedback, is to reverse roles and start the session with the employee review of your own performance as their manager. You can even say 'hey, this 1:1 is for me rather than you!'. It's fun and serious at the same time, and if you do it without ego you can learn a lot about how you are impacting your employees work, what you need to do to make a more conducive environment for them to thrive.
Don't quite understand this. Bolstering yourself would seem awakward for the other person, while criticizing yourself would just be a bad look in front of the person who decides promotions.
As the employee I can't imagine I would ever tell any true criticism of my manager to his face, even if he asks for it and says he puts his ego inside.
He's the one with the power, he's deciding the raises, he's in the room his HR when they're discussing promotions.
Completely unimportant, but anyone else call them one to ones?
Where did this one on one thing come from? A one on one is a boxing match or a schoolyard fight, not an open chat.
8:2:1 is a ratio of cocktail ingredients. 16:9 is an aspect ratio. 1:7 is a steep hill to climb. To, by, and in respectively. The latter two would be weird choices but at least they’d be consistent with the syntax of x:y. “on” though?! Where did that come from?
My random etymology guess here is one on one is from the origin of one vs one. One coming out ON top of the other. So one on one becoming simpler slang implying the same as versus.
Now one to one implies an equal relationship and especially in our field it feels weird imo to call them one to ones. Typical, you aren't equal levels in a 1:1 meeting. So maybe the one on one caught on because of the subtlety of one being on top of or above the other.
Face to face sounds too literal and agressive.
1:1 is an easy clear way to represent one on one. Although, we are forcing a double meaning on it. But hey that's the great thing about language. It's ever evolving.
Personally, in meeting titles I write PersonA/PersonB but I do type 1:1 over one on one when referring to the meeting type.
The whole point of a 1:1 is an opportunity to see your direct as a person and not as a direct. It puts you on equal playing ground for the moment, and as a manager, it is your responsibility to make sure your direct feels that way. When they trust you, they'll tell you how they really feel. That means being open about what they want out of their career, when they are thinking about leaving, when there's an uncomfortable problem on the team. That is what 1:1 is for, and that's why I always refer to them as a one-to-one and not a one-on-one.
This isn’t very satisfying, but I would suspect simple language drift to explain it. Someone came up with one-on-one or one-to-one to describe this particular type of meeting and popularized its use. Eventually someone decided 1:1 was a good shorthand.
I'm no etymology professor, but if I had to guess it's related to the phrase tête-à-tête (literally head to head) in French. Kinda makes sense to me that it went from tête-à-tête -> head to head -> face to face -> one on one. Why it's written as "1:1", I haven't the faintest.
What I don't like is when I as the employer need to take the initiative to do the 1 on 1 and then do it with the feeling like I'm wasting my bosses time.
Maybe try a Five Why's approach to getting him to tell you what he is looking to get out of it. If there's nothing in it for him, then you are literally wasting his time.
He may be a new manager, in which case, maybe point him to building trust with you, understanding your interests and career goals, and learning about others on the team. Those are all valuable for him, even if he doesn't know if yet.
Just realized I assumed gender so apologies to her if I was wrong.
I disagree. I approach 1:1s as an opportunity to just shoot the shit if that person is interested, or if there is something on their mind they can choose to chat about it. As the article states, it's that person's chance to completely dictate the conversation.
I think the best is to personalize things as best you can (depending on your team size). Some personalities are less interested in talking, which is fine―I just try to make sure nothing is blocking them or they're not dissatisfied. Some people love to talk about their life, and I usually have to time-box that.
I genuinely care about how my team is doing and want to help them grow, so 1:1s are my main opportunity to figure out how I can help them... especially in the era of remote work.
I am glad for your team, that you genuinely care. There are enough people stuck in management positions that should sit locked in the basement instead of managing people and making their lives miserable. Currently my one-on-ones are 20 minutes meetings once a year where manager reads from paper what he thinks about my performance last year. I have no right to question his decision. I could open a case with HR to review my review, but it will not improve anything for sure. As long my reviews are good I am good.
1-on-1s are one of my most valuable meetings. You have a direct line to your manager (and often "skip level" where you talking to their boss). That's phenomenal time to push your agenda, build consensus, stuff like that. But if you are just a Jira ticket finisher (and you like it, which is cool!) then I can see how it is less useful.
I would disagree, but it comes down to what kind of manager you have. I have seen plenty of people here on HN say that their 1:1 are basically just a manager going through the motion but there are still many 1:1 who are highly effective.
1:1s between me and my manager are usually very productive. Our project had non existent tests and through 1:1s I was able to advocate for tests and TDD to my manager. 6 months later our entire team is all-in on TDD. There were other gaps that I noticed on my team too that I would bring up in our 1:1 and we have a discussion about it. Are all my suggestions going to be implemented? No, but it's still worth having a discussion.
> I would disagree, but it comes down to what kind of manager you have. I have seen plenty of people here on HN say that their 1:1 are basically just a manager going through the motion but there are still many 1:1 who are highly effective.
In my experience it's a bit of a mix; sometimes (even often, if things are just going well) 1:1 are just "going through the motions", but sometimes it's a good opportunity to raise concerns or issues that don't necessarily have a place otherwise. It partly depends on the manger, but also hugely depends if there's actually something to discus.
I personally wouldn't raise technical concerns in there though; these are the kind of things that fit in well in general technical meetings where the entire team can discus the issue, and the manager can then make a decision (assuming there isn't a broad consensus yes).
I know this article and comments here are mostly related to 1:1s with your boss. But I also use them in a not boss related situation, like scheduled 1:1s with an architect or ux designer if they are not fully assigned to a team.
I also do this. I have a 1:1 document for each of my reports and also each ongoing meeting that I run. The top title is always “Next meeting”. I note down discussion items there and during the meeting the title is converted to a date and under each item, I summarise decisions, reasons, actions and owners.
I’m in a similar position and have a more connected approach. I always have an idea of what my direct reports are up to, and a high level understanding of what their reports are up to. I always have 3-4 discussion items ready, these are usually about whatever is important for the business at the time that intersect with their line of work.
I start with their agenda. They would’ve seen me how I prepare mine before, so usually they would have a similar agenda. I listen to them, discuss, and create action items together. Then we talk through my agenda, and we end with their thoughts as well since they might have just remembered something or it might have come up during my items.
I also make sure the items contain their development and also try to understand if their reports are developing in the direction they want and how I can help.
For myself, I do not find it useful to offload the responsibility of a productive 1-1 to my reports. It is both of ours, and since I have more experience in this, I behave as such and they are usually encouraged by it and start doing the same.
The idea of a monthly one on one scheduled meeting is rediculous.
If you are not talking to all your people every day as a matter of course, they are basically unmanaged. For the love of god don't schedule any meetings. You shouldn't need to since you are just part of your employees flow of work.
The employee / manager relationship should be one in which either party can feel free to just raise any concern the moment that it comes up. Meetings are not how that occurs.
People are busy, you some times don't get the chance to sit down and just talk about anything on your mind. Something else than the current backlog or whatever.
By scheduling regular meetings, it doesn't mean you _have to_ spend an hour talking about whatever, it's a block in your calendar where _you can_. In my experience, these are never forced, but rather an opportunity any party can use to chat, if none get the chance outside of it.
Some people really don't like 1:1s and that's down to individual personalities. Also company culture can make 1:1s feel meaningless if the conversation that happens is never actionable.
I try to see where the person is coming from and adjust my approach. If their concern is not in my power to change, I escalate to my lead when appropriate.
A sibling comment mentioned that chatting about how you're stressed or frustrated can be used against you... I've had that experience and it was terrible. I think it all comes down to having a good manager, and unfortunately you can't always choose.
If there's time to schedule a regular one to one, why isn't there time to instead schedule a meeting when a team member has something on their mind to discuss?
If I have an issue, I’ll go speak to who I need to when I have an issue.
Maybe it’s because I’m introverted, a person of few words and no nonsense but I’ve always found 1:1s to be corporate lip service. I’m in a place I’m happy, my employer happy with my work and I have no interest in career paths etc. That doesn’t mean I’ve no interest in being better/doing better work, which I’m constantly doing, I just have no interest playing the game going through different org chart paths as happy where I am and certainly don’t want to do management.
1:1’s are offical company time so if you share your being stressed or other issues I’ve seen that used against people before, it’s not a private confidential chat, it’s a manager/employee chat.
I find it’s best for me to smile, nod my head and ask the other person how they are.
Experiences outside of corporate I found it more genuine the ceo randomly saying hey do you want to get a coffee/lunch instead of a prescribed scheduled 1:1.
Day to day operations are mostly focussed on the daily routine or issues suddenly appearing. However there is a set of things which doesn't come up in such discussions and in my experience it is good to have somewhat regular moments of "let's take about anything outside the routine, not related to the next release" and having those scheduled helps some folks to collect notes. I'm fine with such a meeting being five minutes, but sometimes it brings up topics which fly under the radar otherwise.
> The employee / manager relationship should be one in which either party can feel free to just raise any concern the moment that it comes up.
This is true in an ideal world, but not everyone is comfortable being direct with superiors. Regular 1-1s establish a baseline and a foundation that can be built on. Plenty of people will delay raising concern until damage has already been done. Regular, private communication lets the manager get ahead of these issues and handle morale problems before they surface.
Here's a better idea: stop fostering cultures where saving face is more important than trying to get things done. These 1:1s supposedly help working to it, but there are limits to what a manager can do, on top of who a manager is themselves.
These 1:1s are becoming what every process inevitably becomes. A strict panacea which turns out to not be a panacea at all.
Agreed regarding culture. This should always be the goal. Unfortunately it is rarely the end result as humans aren't perfect, so some pieces still need tending to.
It's not that 1-1s are a panacea. They are more a mitigation strategy to catch human issues early and address them before they surface and roll into a bigger problem.
Why even bother with a monthly 1:1, that's almost insulting to the employee. If I had major concerns a month is far too long to wait to see action and have them resolved. You're telling your employee that of the ~160 work-hours in a month they are worth less than one of them.
If you have major concerns, why not just schedule a meeting? Why are you waiting for a monthly catch-up to air them? I think this whole one to one thing is pointless - if there's a problem, organise a meeting to discuss it (or talk about it during one of the regular team meetings if it's not a private matter); if not, let's just get on with doing some actual work.
I think the same way you do but I’ve noticed that many people won’t bring up issues unless you take them aside and ask the right questions. No amount of openness and trust seems to work as well as gentle prompting.
Of course, you need to trust your manager. I’ve made the mistake of doing that more than once.
In a department I worked in, there were no scheduled 1-to-1, just a weekly slot that was guaranteed to be available if requested. Nobody ever took it. The manager thought it meant that everything was fine, while in reality he had no idea about how people were doing or how they were feeling.
Nobody wants to come to the manager with problems when he's the one with the power and they don't have a trusty relationship with him. And you don't get trust if you don't communicate regularly.
I see what you're saying but it doesn't sound to me like the scenario you describe would be fixed by scheduling 1-to-1s. Sitting down to talk with someone you don't trust doesn't make you trust them - trust is earned through behaviour over time. If I don't trust my manager then our 1-to-1 is going to be pleasantly bland and provide no value for anyone.
Once the trust is there then the 1-to-1 is proven to be unnecessary because the employee will feel comfortable raising issues as needed.
I hate unscheduled phone calls; I've asked recruiters to make an appointment first, so I can be mentally ready for a phone call. Else I'll be interrupted during focus time (headphones on, balancing seven things in my head simultaneously, you know the drill).
> Talk to your manager? Schedule a one-on-one.
For random day to day stuff, sure, scheduling something might be overboard. But for more serious business, you should put aside some time for both. This is also about respecting each other's time and schedule; you are not the center of your manager's attention.
> Want to raise a technical comment? Issue a Jira ticket.
I think this is an important step to take so that you sit down and think about the issue; it's like rubber ducking, if you can't explain it in e.g. a ticket, you don't understand the problem well enough. Second, task tracking software is documentation; in ten years' time you will thank yourself for making a ticket. (That said, I don't believe storing it in 3rd party software is good, ideally all documentation, including tickets, would be in your git repository. Commit volume and churn is a bit of an issue though).
The thing is, people don't do that. At least not everybody is so open to naturally take the initiative. So scheduling in something makes sure it actually happens.
I used to just ping my direct reports for 1:1s each week when it suited me, and then realised that that's pretty disrespectful of other people's time. I switched to asking people to schedule time with me in my calendar out of respect for their schedule.
If you're scheduling because you've seen over time that predictable schedules is what other co-workers prefer, then you're using the tools to improve everyone's lives.
If you're scheduling because you're supposed to schedule and you never gave it second thought - you're in good company, you're simply among the 99%.
My situation is as follows. I joined my current company 1 year ago; my team is composed of 5 people (data scientists, engineers, 1 product manager) and it is within an area (there are like 10 areas, and each area has around 2 to 3 teams). Alongside my team, there is another team in my area. There is only one engineer manager for the whole area (so, like 8 engineers to "manage").
I have 1:1s every 2 weeks with my engineer manager... and that's basically 99% of the contact I have with them. My eng. manager rarely attends my team's sprint plannings (or any other Scrum ceremony like retros, standups, etc.). We rarely (if any) discuss long-term technical planning/ideas/solutions. They know which products we maintain and in what we are working on, but not much more.
In the 1:1 we are very open, but it always feels like "this is something we have to do, let's carry on with it". They always recommend me some blogs, conferences, sometimes books... but to be honest I'm quite past that phase in my career: it's not that I don't appreciate recommendations, it's that I have been working for more than 10 years in the industry and I have pretty much clear what's my "career path", and it doesn't depend on engineer managers (my "career path" is to keep being an IC, doing a good job, not getting too attached to companies... and switch jobs every 3 years or so).
Seems to me that the job of the engineer manager is just too lightweight. We hire them people because they have two things: a) good people skills, and b) a good track of experience working on tech. We never get to "use" my engineer manager for point b, and point a is summarized as "let's have a good chat every 2 weeks".
Sounds like your engineering manager isn’t doing a good job. I’ve actually learned how to be a better manager by learning what not to do from other crummy managers I’ve had or others had. Hope it doesn’t turn you off from management track or look at all managers like they don’t pull their weight
The thing is they are not a "bad manager" in the sense of: they do micromanaging, they never answer our questions, etc. What I think is that an engineer manager is not always needed... the only reason my company has them is to handle salary raises and promotions in a more ordered way (which is a win for the company, but not so much for the employees).
Sounds like you need to change the intent of your 1:1s. I am senior at a big company (managing teams of teams) and my manager is a senior executive. I meet with him every other week and that is most of the contact I have with him. That works, as he trusts me to execute on his strategic objectives, and I like it like that. Our 1:1s are very purposeful. I inform him on things I think he should know, ask him for support where I need him, and remind him of my career aspirations to get opportunities that move me in that direction. That's it. It ends up as a nice conversation and gets us both what we need. It sounds like you could move your meetings in that general direction.
Well, my 1:1s go like that actually. My point is: if you suddenly remove your 1:1s, would the business or you get impacted? In my case the answer is: no.
The 1:1s are not terrible nor bad, I just feel that they are just superflous.
As a manager, 1:1s are primarily for you. Not the manager. If you’re getting nothing out of them, suggest changes to cadence and/or frequency.
I won’t let my staff ditch them 100% as there’s also a component where I’m using them to spot problems I might not see otherwise. But for the most part, I treat it as their time
As a Doctor, giving my patient a placebo sugar pill once a month is primarily for you. Not the Doctor. I won't let my staff ditch them 100% as there's also a component where I use them to charge their insurance. But for the most part, I treat it as their time.
There is at least one valid reason to do what GP suggested regarding 1:1s in my experience:
If an employee is having an issue that they don't want to put in writing (or you sense this), oftentimes a one-on-one is the only way to coax it out. Particularly if they have an issue with leadership, HR, other managers, etc. Decent managers are also using 1:1s to make sure their employees are treated well in the org as a whole.
But I recognize the 'decent' is doing some very heavy lifting in that sentence.
Right. As a manager I'm invested in seeing the employee grow, develop, and have a fulfilling life. It's not 100% altruistic on my part, as a happy employee who is motivated to improve is better for the company. But I also care about them as people. Thus, the 1:1 is their time to drive that. My role is to help guide and coach, but they know themselves best.
However, another part of my job is to spot larger problems. That's an exercise in pattern matching. While you're talking I'm matching to keywords I've picked up in my travels. Other meetings, 1:1s, etc. Maybe there's a problem lurking down the road that's only visible if one assembles these disparate data. Sometimes those are problems for the employee that they themselves don't realize as you suggest, other times it has no direct connection to them but they're key to identifying the issue. That last part is why I don't agree with getting rid of 1:1s altogether.
This is a recurring problem in hierarchical relationships. The subordinates have a good reason to assume that these tete-a-tetes can be used against them; they are acting in their own rational interest because of the power imbalance. So they hold back and give superficial feedback.
As an employee I took the tactic of saying fuck it and saying what's on my mind. If it'll be used against me, so be it. I think that's the optimal path but it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. At the end of the day it's on the employee to find their path out of this.
As a manager the best I can do is try to build a solid rapport with the person in hopes that they feel comfortable opening up. But there's no magic bullet to this and every person is different. That rapport also goes both ways. I struggle with newer employees as I have no connection with them and am much more likely to fall back on generic platitudes. As I get to know the person the questions I ask and suggestions I make can be more tailored to their personalities and comfort zones.
> Seems to me that the job of the engineer manager is just too lightweight.
Maybe you don't see other things they do. Their work isn't only 1:1 with you. For instance, hiring, evaluating employees, redirecting team efforts if new priority arises, fostering collaboration with other teams if needed, unblocking things, reporting to high management about the team whereabout, making sure every IC has what they need for their job, taking the temperature of the team, informing people about opportunities, and so on...
Yes, they screen CVs and join tech interviews. I also join tech interviews.
> evaluating employees
True. They use the 1:1s to keep track of the evaluation afaik.
> redirecting team efforts if new priority arises
As I said, our eng. manager doesn't usually join our planning nor has ever said anything regarding "X has more prio than Y"... Redirecting the team effort is mostly on the team itself (PM + tech lead)
> fostering collaboration with other teams if needed
Again, this happens only if the teams decide to do so. Teams are quite self sub-stained.
> unblocking things
Never happen in our team. If there are any technical blockers, that's usually solved by the tech lead + infra team. If there any business blockers, that's solved by our PM + stakeholders.
> reporting to high management about the team whereabout
Eng. managers have private Slack channels, so can't say anything about this regard.
> making sure every IC has what they need for their job
Care to elaborate? If I need an IDE, I ask in the #it-support channel. If I need to take holiday/sick-leave I ask my team and PM. If I prefer Postgres instead of MySQL, I talk with the infra team; any business-related issue? I talk to my PM... what kind of stuff one asks to their eng. manager?
> taking the temperature of the team, informing people about opportunities, and so on
Lightweight job I would say. But yes, a job nonetheless.
Everything is pretty light weight as long as things are running smoothly. It's not completely unlike an IT department: You only really figure out their value, when things go poorly.
> my "career path" is to keep being an IC, doing a good job, not getting too attached to companies... and switch jobs every 3 years or so
THIS is what the 1:1 is for. That is where you communicate to your manager what you need in order to keep from leaving in a few years. You might not get it and leave anyway, but then again, you might. Nothing lost in the trying.*
* I'm not suggesting you frame it as an ultimatum but let them know what you want.
There is a great community driven list [0] of 1 on 1 questions that I like to pick a couple questions as conversation starters or as backup when the conversation goes stale.
It is also available as JSON so you can script the random selection.
Yeah, I’ve been finding my one on ones useless recently, and this article seems to have some more useless “wisdom” here summed up in a nice package. Kind of annoying to me that the writer implies the one on one is for me to fill his valuable time. I’m loving my work, don’t have any issues with my coworkers, and like my current position. I really don’t have critical feedback to bring to the table every one on one. To be honest, if everything is going smoothly, all I can do is talk about what I’m excited to work on next and how life is going. Which is a status update.
By the way, I found the “figure out my problems and solve them” line very rich. Every morning we have a standup where my manager tells me what his main concerns are and then I change my priority of work to keep his stress (and thus mine) low on whatever the new issue is. That’s generally how managers and employees work. You’re probably doing something very wrong or are very green if you don’t know what your managers chief stressors and concerns are, because I have no idea how you’d manage your work properly otherwise.
> You’re probably doing something very wrong or are very green if you don’t know what your managers chief stressors and concerns are, because I have no idea how you’d manage your work properly otherwise.
I basically agree with nearly everything you said. I just wanted to widen the scope a bit on the quoted part. Working in an agency in a client facing role, my main focus is to reduce the stressors for my client and "arm" them with things that make them look good with their managers and leadership.
Else than that I can only agree that when everything is fine - why should I fill 30 - 45 minutes of my managers time (that could be used more efficiently).
Also: If not everything is well I feel it is important to see if this is something your manager can do anything about. Not because you should not tell them if they can't do anything about, but to adjust your expectations and state it as an information/request. Oftentimes I found myself talking to my manager about things that don't work well but they could not do anything about this. But we found ourselves nonetheless creating ideas how to mitigate this in other areas.
When I don't have anything work-related to report, there are no concerns on either side, and there are no situational changes, we just chat with my manager for the whole half-hour about various life topics.
Sometimes it may bring to memory something related to work, which we can discuss. Sometimes it will be completely unrelated to work for the whole meeting, but I think there is still value in that. It helps us build a better relationship and reveals more about who we are and how we think and helps just generally "tune" ourselves to each other.
I hate when this happens. It's been a recent revelation of mine that I'm happiest when my personal business remains personal. I hate having to scrape through my life sanitizing topics into conversational safe spaces just to get paid.
Very much agreed. Those personal anecdotes and stories shouldn't have any affect on the workplace. But often you'll find subtle biases coming from the other party, after sharing stuff they may not like or agree with. It's fine for everyone to have their own opinion and certainly feelings on things. I don't want to share anything personal, or not work related at any work function/meeting. I don't want someone else's opinion on my personal life affecting their opinions of my work.
I personally like talking about life-stuff with certain people, but not with all. In practice there's a handful of people where we do share those things, and a bunch where we don't.
And imo that's totally fine.
We usually start 1:1's with a little smalltalk, then list the agenda points that both participants have prepared. We cover those, and if there's time left we either talk about life, freestyle into broad work topics or end the meeting early.
There are times when I feel like a meeting wasn't valuable, but by far most are valuable. Especially in a fully remote team (even pre-covid), it is a moment to talk and get to know one another (again, only if both parties want to)
You're not a work robot, you're a human being with a life. It's only natural for people to want to discuss their lives with each other. It's hilarious when people on this forum complain about being treated as "faceless worker drones" and then leave comments like this.
Generally agreed, but I’d say it’s easy to forget long standing issues because you mentioned it once and no one followed up. It’s a good idea to keep 1-1 meeting notes to follow up on things and keep a record. And honestly if people have nothing much to discuss or are not interested in chitchat you should just wrap the check in early and let everyone get back to work or life.
> I’ve been finding my one on ones useless recently
It sounds like you have a good problem to have. Given your described state you have space for relationship building. Many humans enjoy different kinds of chitchat. If one is able to create a positive expected emotional outcome from interactions, it acts as a thumb on the scales in your favor in other areas.
Cialdini's book "Pre-suasion" has good information about different techniques to operationalize. Below is a podcast in which he discusses the ethical use of such.
Additionally I have seen multiple articles or heard managers talk about having an open document between themselves and the report that they "own" and can fill up with stuff and as an IC/report I just don't see where I'm supposed to find the time to do all that and additionally as the team manager who is responsible for reporting up what we're doing/etc why don't you do more tracking of my accomplishments/etc too? You're literally reporting up on those accomplishments to higher managers so why can't you also collate that info for me to present in 1:1s?
> I don't know if anyone's ever told you that half the time this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy.'
What articles like these fail to realize or fail to point to is that a lot of your work outcomes come down to whether your manager likes you, their manager likes you and your coworkers like you. This isn't universal of course. There are some people who are disliked but clearly brilliant enough for it to matter. These people are the exception not th enorm.
At Google, there was a meme in performance review that goes something like:
> This project would've failed without this person. It failed anyway but it definitely would've without them.
You can take the same set of circumstances and interpret them differently based on who you like and who you don't. Project fails? Someone you like did what they could for the team. Someone you don't didn't contribute enough. Project succeeds? Person you like was a key reason why. Person you don't wasn't.
So when it comes to 1:1s, if your manager likes you you're more likely to be someone they advocate for, extol the virtues of your accomplishments and so on. If your manager is liked the more likely their opinions are to carry weight.
So how to get the most value of your 1:1s? Figure out if your manager likes you and figure out if their managers likes them.
You're assuming this is unrelated to performance. Managers like people who do good work and get shit done without a lot of handholding. It really helps if you're respectful and not irritating. What you describe is totally rational and fair as long as the manager is regularly updating their opinions.
Yet another manager not knowing what being a manager is. It is your responsibility to know what your reports are doing and making sure their efforts are recognised and their flaws corrected (or ultimately fired). If you don't remember unless someone keeps sending you self promotional messages, you are the problem, not your reports.
How often do you all have 1:1’s with manager. I’ve been in industry 15+ years and meet with my manager once or maybe twice a month, which seems reasonable. I’m fairly self sufficient and don’t need a lot assistance. Some of my peers at the same company and are also quite experienced have to meet with their manager weekly for 1:1’s. They remark to me that they don’t get a lot of value out of them being that frequent.
Once a month, and he often reschedules or cancels it the day before. They are scheduled for 30 minutes.
A couple years ago, I asked him to meet weekly and he obliged. It felt like he wasn't willing to actually engage in the discussion. I walked back that request to two weeks and then monthly.
I've been trying to talk less as well, since I realize that it's a one-sided conversation. It's difficult for me though, since I feel like we should be talking more.
I've had regularly scheduled biweekly meetings for the last several years. If we miss a meeting due to PTO or something, we don't reschedule, so meetings are sometimes a month apart.
One of my previous managers would just drop by my office on Friday afternoon to check in. This was shorter and shallower, more of a status update. My 1:1s tend to have a longer term focus: handing off responsibility for a project, and discussing which upcoming projects sound interesting.
As a soon-to-be manager myself, I will probably start with weekly 1:1s until I get to know the team well enough, then drop back to biweekly.
My manager technically has a "one on one" (30 mins) meeting every week with me. But the type/purpose of this meeting alternates.
One week its an "Alignment" meeting between me and my manager. This is a time where the manager can talk to me about my current tasks and if I need any assistance from him. We also go over our yearly goals on a regular basis here, just so we can make sure that I am on the right track.
The next week we have our 1:1 meeting. These are lead by me and gives me dedicated time to discuss anything I would like.
What I described above is the only structure to the meetings. If manager doesn't have much to discuss in our alignment meetings he opens the floor for any 1:1 type of discussion and on the flip side, if I wanted to talk about my current blockers during my 1:1 meeting that is also fine.
You guys get to have 1:1s? This reminds me of a site I've found a few years ago that mapped out all the universities in the area and listed the contact info of the on campus psychologist.
211 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadI think it works the best when it's completely open to anything at all.
However... why do they feel like turning it into a status update? Is it because the manager isn't sufficiently looped in to what's happening on a daily basis?
At times I’ll interrupt them and say ’this isnt a status call, this is your time to complain, vent, suggest, ask whatever you like and find a way for me to help you’. I always try to keep them upbeat and ask about the weekend, hobbies, etc. Not everybody wants that conversation i think.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m sure my words could evoke a notion of some bully creeping on employees but I am just trying to break habits. I don’t force anything and as others have mentioned sometimes a status update is exactly what folks want to discuss.
Not to mention that as engineers, they probably value extended blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on being productive;
> 30 minute 1:1’s every week with my team (8 engineers). I’m in weekly backlog grooming sessions, semi-weekly demos, retros and sprint planning and of course daily standups
With respect, this sounds like hell to me. The only thing I would be complaining about is that you were tying me up in meetings so much that I couldn't get any actual work done.
And however friendly you are with your team members, you're still their manager and they probably don't feel close enough to freely share much of their personal lives with you - that's generally the nature of the relationship and there's nothing wrong with that.
So what am I supposed to do in a situation like that? Nothing is really broken, so I don't have much of constructive points to bring up.
You will love this HBR article : https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers
Also see Management: A Political Activity by Ted Stephenson.
If you don't do this, it becomes a transactional relationship, which is OK, but to me holds less potential than one based on mutual trust and understanding.
Obviously, this effect is much easier when you are not in a management position. Because of that I was usually borderline paranoid about these changes in 1:1s with my directs.
In small teams I found the way to have informal, spontaneous 1:1s very effective. The basis, so, always was regularly scheduled ones unless you just forget to have them.
EDIT: For sure every 1:1 is different, and every 1:1 with different people need to be run differently. Some people like to discuss private stuff, others want in-depth tech discussions. Sometimes 1:1s are over in 5 minutes, sometimes they take an hour. Be flexible, and never use anything said in a 1:1 "against" the other person.
I don’t really see where the commenter implied this.
To support their stance, I have also had lots of managers at various-sized companies (FAANG incl), who didn’t understand the inherent 1:1 power dynamic. They would expect full honesty, while covering up anything above my pay-grade.
This was many years ago so apologies if some details are a bit off, but the gist of the story has stuck with me over the years.
Giving a 1-10 rating directly to your supervisor is a completely different thing and the number is tainted by all sorts of other dynamics.
power dynamics vary. some developers can always easily get another job, so they have a lot of power. in a case like that, asking the developer to rate their satisfaction seems normal & good, like a customer satisfaction survey.
My #1 best recommendation for those starting out is to always tell your direct reports that this is their time and you guys can talk about whatever is on your mind. Like the article says, make sure you verbalize this is not a status update meeting. What's obvious to you is not obvious to them.
If you guys run out of topics to chop up, I also recommend asking for advice from your direct report about any subject that's on your mind. It builds rapport.
He's the one with the power, he's deciding the raises, he's in the room his HR when they're discussing promotions.
Where did this one on one thing come from? A one on one is a boxing match or a schoolyard fight, not an open chat.
8:2:1 is a ratio of cocktail ingredients. 16:9 is an aspect ratio. 1:7 is a steep hill to climb. To, by, and in respectively. The latter two would be weird choices but at least they’d be consistent with the syntax of x:y. “on” though?! Where did that come from?
Don’t say “Japanese poetry” :)
Now one to one implies an equal relationship and especially in our field it feels weird imo to call them one to ones. Typical, you aren't equal levels in a 1:1 meeting. So maybe the one on one caught on because of the subtlety of one being on top of or above the other.
Face to face sounds too literal and agressive.
1:1 is an easy clear way to represent one on one. Although, we are forcing a double meaning on it. But hey that's the great thing about language. It's ever evolving.
Personally, in meeting titles I write PersonA/PersonB but I do type 1:1 over one on one when referring to the meeting type.
The whole point of a 1:1 is an opportunity to see your direct as a person and not as a direct. It puts you on equal playing ground for the moment, and as a manager, it is your responsibility to make sure your direct feels that way. When they trust you, they'll tell you how they really feel. That means being open about what they want out of their career, when they are thinking about leaving, when there's an uncomfortable problem on the team. That is what 1:1 is for, and that's why I always refer to them as a one-to-one and not a one-on-one.
He may be a new manager, in which case, maybe point him to building trust with you, understanding your interests and career goals, and learning about others on the team. Those are all valuable for him, even if he doesn't know if yet.
Just realized I assumed gender so apologies to her if I was wrong.
I think the best is to personalize things as best you can (depending on your team size). Some personalities are less interested in talking, which is fine―I just try to make sure nothing is blocking them or they're not dissatisfied. Some people love to talk about their life, and I usually have to time-box that.
I genuinely care about how my team is doing and want to help them grow, so 1:1s are my main opportunity to figure out how I can help them... especially in the era of remote work.
What you described sounds like a performance review... I think 1:1s should be monthly or weekly, depending on the team.
1:1s between me and my manager are usually very productive. Our project had non existent tests and through 1:1s I was able to advocate for tests and TDD to my manager. 6 months later our entire team is all-in on TDD. There were other gaps that I noticed on my team too that I would bring up in our 1:1 and we have a discussion about it. Are all my suggestions going to be implemented? No, but it's still worth having a discussion.
In my experience it's a bit of a mix; sometimes (even often, if things are just going well) 1:1 are just "going through the motions", but sometimes it's a good opportunity to raise concerns or issues that don't necessarily have a place otherwise. It partly depends on the manger, but also hugely depends if there's actually something to discus.
I personally wouldn't raise technical concerns in there though; these are the kind of things that fit in well in general technical meetings where the entire team can discus the issue, and the manager can then make a decision (assuming there isn't a broad consensus yes).
I start with their agenda. They would’ve seen me how I prepare mine before, so usually they would have a similar agenda. I listen to them, discuss, and create action items together. Then we talk through my agenda, and we end with their thoughts as well since they might have just remembered something or it might have come up during my items.
I also make sure the items contain their development and also try to understand if their reports are developing in the direction they want and how I can help.
For myself, I do not find it useful to offload the responsibility of a productive 1-1 to my reports. It is both of ours, and since I have more experience in this, I behave as such and they are usually encouraged by it and start doing the same.
If you are not talking to all your people every day as a matter of course, they are basically unmanaged. For the love of god don't schedule any meetings. You shouldn't need to since you are just part of your employees flow of work.
The employee / manager relationship should be one in which either party can feel free to just raise any concern the moment that it comes up. Meetings are not how that occurs.
People are busy, you some times don't get the chance to sit down and just talk about anything on your mind. Something else than the current backlog or whatever.
By scheduling regular meetings, it doesn't mean you _have to_ spend an hour talking about whatever, it's a block in your calendar where _you can_. In my experience, these are never forced, but rather an opportunity any party can use to chat, if none get the chance outside of it.
Some people really don't like 1:1s and that's down to individual personalities. Also company culture can make 1:1s feel meaningless if the conversation that happens is never actionable.
I try to see where the person is coming from and adjust my approach. If their concern is not in my power to change, I escalate to my lead when appropriate.
A sibling comment mentioned that chatting about how you're stressed or frustrated can be used against you... I've had that experience and it was terrible. I think it all comes down to having a good manager, and unfortunately you can't always choose.
If I have an issue, I’ll go speak to who I need to when I have an issue.
Maybe it’s because I’m introverted, a person of few words and no nonsense but I’ve always found 1:1s to be corporate lip service. I’m in a place I’m happy, my employer happy with my work and I have no interest in career paths etc. That doesn’t mean I’ve no interest in being better/doing better work, which I’m constantly doing, I just have no interest playing the game going through different org chart paths as happy where I am and certainly don’t want to do management.
1:1’s are offical company time so if you share your being stressed or other issues I’ve seen that used against people before, it’s not a private confidential chat, it’s a manager/employee chat.
I find it’s best for me to smile, nod my head and ask the other person how they are.
Experiences outside of corporate I found it more genuine the ceo randomly saying hey do you want to get a coffee/lunch instead of a prescribed scheduled 1:1.
This is true in an ideal world, but not everyone is comfortable being direct with superiors. Regular 1-1s establish a baseline and a foundation that can be built on. Plenty of people will delay raising concern until damage has already been done. Regular, private communication lets the manager get ahead of these issues and handle morale problems before they surface.
These 1:1s are becoming what every process inevitably becomes. A strict panacea which turns out to not be a panacea at all.
It's not that 1-1s are a panacea. They are more a mitigation strategy to catch human issues early and address them before they surface and roll into a bigger problem.
Of course, you need to trust your manager. I’ve made the mistake of doing that more than once.
In a department I worked in, there were no scheduled 1-to-1, just a weekly slot that was guaranteed to be available if requested. Nobody ever took it. The manager thought it meant that everything was fine, while in reality he had no idea about how people were doing or how they were feeling.
Nobody wants to come to the manager with problems when he's the one with the power and they don't have a trusty relationship with him. And you don't get trust if you don't communicate regularly.
Once the trust is there then the 1-to-1 is proven to be unnecessary because the employee will feel comfortable raising issues as needed.
Phone call? Book a calendar invite. Talk to your manager? Schedule a one-on-one. Want to raise a technical comment? Issue a Jira ticket.
Not to say that this is all bad, but wondering if it's really helpful.
No, it is not.
Too much formalization brings the power dynamic imbalance front-and-center and leads to people telling you what they think you want to hear.
I hate unscheduled phone calls; I've asked recruiters to make an appointment first, so I can be mentally ready for a phone call. Else I'll be interrupted during focus time (headphones on, balancing seven things in my head simultaneously, you know the drill).
> Talk to your manager? Schedule a one-on-one.
For random day to day stuff, sure, scheduling something might be overboard. But for more serious business, you should put aside some time for both. This is also about respecting each other's time and schedule; you are not the center of your manager's attention.
> Want to raise a technical comment? Issue a Jira ticket.
I think this is an important step to take so that you sit down and think about the issue; it's like rubber ducking, if you can't explain it in e.g. a ticket, you don't understand the problem well enough. Second, task tracking software is documentation; in ten years' time you will thank yourself for making a ticket. (That said, I don't believe storing it in 3rd party software is good, ideally all documentation, including tickets, would be in your git repository. Commit volume and churn is a bit of an issue though).
I used to just ping my direct reports for 1:1s each week when it suited me, and then realised that that's pretty disrespectful of other people's time. I switched to asking people to schedule time with me in my calendar out of respect for their schedule.
If you're scheduling because you've seen over time that predictable schedules is what other co-workers prefer, then you're using the tools to improve everyone's lives.
If you're scheduling because you're supposed to schedule and you never gave it second thought - you're in good company, you're simply among the 99%.
Because we're past a point where if you don't have that shipping label on it, you can just ignore it and say you never got it.
It was inevitable.
I have 1:1s every 2 weeks with my engineer manager... and that's basically 99% of the contact I have with them. My eng. manager rarely attends my team's sprint plannings (or any other Scrum ceremony like retros, standups, etc.). We rarely (if any) discuss long-term technical planning/ideas/solutions. They know which products we maintain and in what we are working on, but not much more.
In the 1:1 we are very open, but it always feels like "this is something we have to do, let's carry on with it". They always recommend me some blogs, conferences, sometimes books... but to be honest I'm quite past that phase in my career: it's not that I don't appreciate recommendations, it's that I have been working for more than 10 years in the industry and I have pretty much clear what's my "career path", and it doesn't depend on engineer managers (my "career path" is to keep being an IC, doing a good job, not getting too attached to companies... and switch jobs every 3 years or so).
Seems to me that the job of the engineer manager is just too lightweight. We hire them people because they have two things: a) good people skills, and b) a good track of experience working on tech. We never get to "use" my engineer manager for point b, and point a is summarized as "let's have a good chat every 2 weeks".
that's terrible
The 1:1s are not terrible nor bad, I just feel that they are just superflous.
I won’t let my staff ditch them 100% as there’s also a component where I’m using them to spot problems I might not see otherwise. But for the most part, I treat it as their time
If an employee is having an issue that they don't want to put in writing (or you sense this), oftentimes a one-on-one is the only way to coax it out. Particularly if they have an issue with leadership, HR, other managers, etc. Decent managers are also using 1:1s to make sure their employees are treated well in the org as a whole.
But I recognize the 'decent' is doing some very heavy lifting in that sentence.
However, another part of my job is to spot larger problems. That's an exercise in pattern matching. While you're talking I'm matching to keywords I've picked up in my travels. Other meetings, 1:1s, etc. Maybe there's a problem lurking down the road that's only visible if one assembles these disparate data. Sometimes those are problems for the employee that they themselves don't realize as you suggest, other times it has no direct connection to them but they're key to identifying the issue. That last part is why I don't agree with getting rid of 1:1s altogether.
As an employee I took the tactic of saying fuck it and saying what's on my mind. If it'll be used against me, so be it. I think that's the optimal path but it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. At the end of the day it's on the employee to find their path out of this.
As a manager the best I can do is try to build a solid rapport with the person in hopes that they feel comfortable opening up. But there's no magic bullet to this and every person is different. That rapport also goes both ways. I struggle with newer employees as I have no connection with them and am much more likely to fall back on generic platitudes. As I get to know the person the questions I ask and suggestions I make can be more tailored to their personalities and comfort zones.
Maybe you don't see other things they do. Their work isn't only 1:1 with you. For instance, hiring, evaluating employees, redirecting team efforts if new priority arises, fostering collaboration with other teams if needed, unblocking things, reporting to high management about the team whereabout, making sure every IC has what they need for their job, taking the temperature of the team, informing people about opportunities, and so on...
Yes, they screen CVs and join tech interviews. I also join tech interviews.
> evaluating employees
True. They use the 1:1s to keep track of the evaluation afaik.
> redirecting team efforts if new priority arises
As I said, our eng. manager doesn't usually join our planning nor has ever said anything regarding "X has more prio than Y"... Redirecting the team effort is mostly on the team itself (PM + tech lead)
> fostering collaboration with other teams if needed
Again, this happens only if the teams decide to do so. Teams are quite self sub-stained.
> unblocking things
Never happen in our team. If there are any technical blockers, that's usually solved by the tech lead + infra team. If there any business blockers, that's solved by our PM + stakeholders.
> reporting to high management about the team whereabout
Eng. managers have private Slack channels, so can't say anything about this regard.
> making sure every IC has what they need for their job
Care to elaborate? If I need an IDE, I ask in the #it-support channel. If I need to take holiday/sick-leave I ask my team and PM. If I prefer Postgres instead of MySQL, I talk with the infra team; any business-related issue? I talk to my PM... what kind of stuff one asks to their eng. manager?
> taking the temperature of the team, informing people about opportunities, and so on
Lightweight job I would say. But yes, a job nonetheless.
THIS is what the 1:1 is for. That is where you communicate to your manager what you need in order to keep from leaving in a few years. You might not get it and leave anyway, but then again, you might. Nothing lost in the trying.*
* I'm not suggesting you frame it as an ultimatum but let them know what you want.
[0] https://github.com/VGraupera/1on1-questions
By the way, I found the “figure out my problems and solve them” line very rich. Every morning we have a standup where my manager tells me what his main concerns are and then I change my priority of work to keep his stress (and thus mine) low on whatever the new issue is. That’s generally how managers and employees work. You’re probably doing something very wrong or are very green if you don’t know what your managers chief stressors and concerns are, because I have no idea how you’d manage your work properly otherwise.
I basically agree with nearly everything you said. I just wanted to widen the scope a bit on the quoted part. Working in an agency in a client facing role, my main focus is to reduce the stressors for my client and "arm" them with things that make them look good with their managers and leadership.
Else than that I can only agree that when everything is fine - why should I fill 30 - 45 minutes of my managers time (that could be used more efficiently).
Also: If not everything is well I feel it is important to see if this is something your manager can do anything about. Not because you should not tell them if they can't do anything about, but to adjust your expectations and state it as an information/request. Oftentimes I found myself talking to my manager about things that don't work well but they could not do anything about this. But we found ourselves nonetheless creating ideas how to mitigate this in other areas.
Sometimes it may bring to memory something related to work, which we can discuss. Sometimes it will be completely unrelated to work for the whole meeting, but I think there is still value in that. It helps us build a better relationship and reveals more about who we are and how we think and helps just generally "tune" ourselves to each other.
That's just how it goes with most people - you have to adjust yourself, almost the way you do with children.
And imo that's totally fine.
We usually start 1:1's with a little smalltalk, then list the agenda points that both participants have prepared. We cover those, and if there's time left we either talk about life, freestyle into broad work topics or end the meeting early.
There are times when I feel like a meeting wasn't valuable, but by far most are valuable. Especially in a fully remote team (even pre-covid), it is a moment to talk and get to know one another (again, only if both parties want to)
It sounds like you have a good problem to have. Given your described state you have space for relationship building. Many humans enjoy different kinds of chitchat. If one is able to create a positive expected emotional outcome from interactions, it acts as a thumb on the scales in your favor in other areas.
Cialdini's book "Pre-suasion" has good information about different techniques to operationalize. Below is a podcast in which he discusses the ethical use of such.
https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/robert-cialdini/
> I don't know if anyone's ever told you that half the time this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy.'
What articles like these fail to realize or fail to point to is that a lot of your work outcomes come down to whether your manager likes you, their manager likes you and your coworkers like you. This isn't universal of course. There are some people who are disliked but clearly brilliant enough for it to matter. These people are the exception not th enorm.
At Google, there was a meme in performance review that goes something like:
> This project would've failed without this person. It failed anyway but it definitely would've without them.
You can take the same set of circumstances and interpret them differently based on who you like and who you don't. Project fails? Someone you like did what they could for the team. Someone you don't didn't contribute enough. Project succeeds? Person you like was a key reason why. Person you don't wasn't.
So when it comes to 1:1s, if your manager likes you you're more likely to be someone they advocate for, extol the virtues of your accomplishments and so on. If your manager is liked the more likely their opinions are to carry weight.
So how to get the most value of your 1:1s? Figure out if your manager likes you and figure out if their managers likes them.
[1]: https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/783648743690231808?lang...
A couple years ago, I asked him to meet weekly and he obliged. It felt like he wasn't willing to actually engage in the discussion. I walked back that request to two weeks and then monthly.
I've been trying to talk less as well, since I realize that it's a one-sided conversation. It's difficult for me though, since I feel like we should be talking more.
i would say every other week should be perfect.
One of my previous managers would just drop by my office on Friday afternoon to check in. This was shorter and shallower, more of a status update. My 1:1s tend to have a longer term focus: handing off responsibility for a project, and discussing which upcoming projects sound interesting.
As a soon-to-be manager myself, I will probably start with weekly 1:1s until I get to know the team well enough, then drop back to biweekly.
One week its an "Alignment" meeting between me and my manager. This is a time where the manager can talk to me about my current tasks and if I need any assistance from him. We also go over our yearly goals on a regular basis here, just so we can make sure that I am on the right track.
The next week we have our 1:1 meeting. These are lead by me and gives me dedicated time to discuss anything I would like.
What I described above is the only structure to the meetings. If manager doesn't have much to discuss in our alignment meetings he opens the floor for any 1:1 type of discussion and on the flip side, if I wanted to talk about my current blockers during my 1:1 meeting that is also fine.
So to answer your question, our 1:1 are biweekly.
Ours redirected to a big fat 404.