My 1:1s with my boss are basically useless and I think we're both aware of that.
What do people generally talk about in 1:1s?
I've never really been clear what the purpose is other than to check a box and say it happened.
2. Concerns/issues
3. General chat
Most people forget the third option. It’s OK if it’s just time to hang out with each other.
That said, it’s your meeting more than it is your manager’s. If you want to cancel, you should. However, frequent cancellation is a signal of a problem to my mind.
As a manager, the only thing more frustrating than a 1:1 which is like pulling teeth, is a 1:1 with somebody who doesn’t want to communicate at all.
If they are the one driving the agenda it is indeed probably going to be a waste of time.
This cartoon is a useful prompter for different things to think about going into them:
We have group meetings to cover the majority of:
- What's going well
- What's not going well
- Team priorities
- Brainstorm
My boss in general doesn't really give feedback.
And the answers "Ask for opportunities", "Career Planning", and "Ask for extra resources" is basically, "This is the job, if you want something else, go find a new job"
I did manage to get a raise and a few extra responsibilities by going out and getting a job offer at a different company.
I think probably the real answer is that my job is a dead end and probably an unhealthy environment to have spent so much time in.
But also I have outstanding work-life balance, which is my highest priority at the moment with three young kids at home.
In a couple years maybe that changes.
I also at some point personally started making a conscious effort to spend less time on #2, bringing up concerns/issues. Nine times out of ten nothing will come out of it anyway (most things are out of your manager's control), and nobody likes a complainer. Your effort is better spent practicing meditation, or else applying to new jobs if things are really bad, rather than spending half an hour every week "voicing concerns" in a 1:1.
That basically leaves a large majority of 1:1 time spent on #3, which I totally agree with the parent comment gets awkward after a while.
I have started wonder if the 1:1 in tech is an "emperor has no clothes" type of situation. Am I so unusual? Or do we all just go along pretending that these are super essential to a functional team, while in practice not much really ever comes of them?
We would talk about projects I am working on, their general status and if I have blockers, if the team is working good from my POV, administrative stuff like PTO, performance reviews. He also had varying interests so there was some personality there such as what game you playing, what shows you watching. We even shared a bit of "how things at the homefront".
We were both in our late 20s/early 30s and he was relatively new. He didn't want "that manager" because lord know that company had a lot of managers that existed to attend meetings and divy work up with nothing of benefit to the team.
But, I can echo what you are saying. I have had manager that hold meetings just to dodge work and claim they did some managering that day. Yea, daily 2 hour "team lunches and planning sessions" doesn't do anything for the fact we need to get work done boss.