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Comment by Esophagus4 | Hacker News Reader

That’s an anti pattern of management - the 1-1 shouldn’t be a status update. There are times you want to brief your boss on things that are important to them, but if you’re just going over your tickets, that’s a waste of time (unless you’re using that time to get technical guidance on your tickets).

There are lots of lousy managers out there, and you can’t control that - but you can set the agenda of your 1-1 yourself if they don’t have one. It’s your 45 minutes with the person who signs your checks, use it to your advantage.

Search the net for questions / topics to manage up in 1-1s.

I often ask my manager for feedback, ask about expectations for promotion, career opportunities, ask advice on problems I have, ask how I can get my thing prioritized, brief her on something I think she should be aware of and what I need from her, etc.

Don’t let your manager turn your 45 minutes into a waste of time.

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I lead teams of Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and Platform Engineers. My direct reports drive their 1:1s; from the need to have them in the first place to the agenda when we do.

We have standups for our team as well as the larger team and we are in constant contact with one another throughout each day via IM. Why would we need to repeat the same shit in a 1:1?

I consider their 1:1s THEIR meeting. If they want it, I'm there; if they don't and want to work, great.

As such, we almost never have 1:1s and my team continually leads the organization w/the highest overall as well as manager satisfaction. It's been this way at each and every company I've worked for and is likely why all but one inherited direct report has worked with me at multiple companies before.

> if they don't and want to work, great.

Interesting thought, I had never considered cancelling if they don’t have anything. Thanks for that.

My thought was always, “I want to give everyone that time no matter what, and if they don’t have anything, then I go to a list of questions I have for every 1-1 if we have time. Stuff like, “how are you feeling with ${latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team is doing?” or “are you interested in the work these days, or burnt out?” or ask them about some problem I’m trying to solve for the team and how they’d approach it.

Ala: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-t...

Empowerment of your team is the single most impactful thing you can do for them. This is one small way of making them feel that they truly have autonomy.

>“how are you feeling with ${latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team is doing?” or “are you interested in the work these days, or burnt out?”

That is the worst questions to ask to the experienced people. You cannot share your negative feelings, so the answer should be socially acceptable bullshit.

Are you burnt out? Yes? Sorry to hear that! I'll put a high attrition risk to your name in the system.

Like asking during the job interview the question: Why do you want to work here? I need money and you have an open position! But you cannot answer that to pass the gatekeeper.

> That is the worst questions to ask to the experienced people.

God what a know-it-all. This is just a vent without substance by someone that I can safely assume hates his job and his manager.

This very much depends on the place and the level of maturity in how you share the negativity. Good managers will try to understand and help you, that's a large part of their job.

Also, if you are a high performer then being an attrition risk isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's in the companies best interest to try keep people who are important.

This is such good common sense that it’s foreign to so many people.

The 1:1 is great when needed. It’s a waste of time if everyone is already communicating everything. The most efficient teams communicate effectively without having to force it into recurring, pre-determined time slots. Topics like performance reviews and career progression are better discussed in quarterly meetings dedicated to that topic, not a weekly time slot with a fluid agenda.

I would love practical advice on how to say to a manager "I'm not deriving any value from this recurring 1x1 meeting, can we move it to on-demand?"

My 30+ year career has not revealed a way to achieve that yet without repurcussions. However much I'd prefer it.

I realize I’m different than many leaders out there; I came up through the ranks and do everything the way I wished it had been rather than the way it was.

As such, I’m entirely open to any and all feedback from my team. I certainly wouldn’t be offended if you just asked; I’d do my best to accommodate it.

What’s the worst that can happen? They say no?

Worst that happens is they get silently offended, while being political to you at the same time and secretly undermine your performance reviews during calibration meetings without you even knowing or just not standing up for you that much during this time will be enough due to stack ranking etc.

This - I've had a manager who was pretty ineffective, and if he wasn't doing 1:1s he'd feel like he was failing at managing. Easier to just talk in circles with him.

The meeting isn't for you. If it were, you'd have been the one scheduling it.

First place to start is to determine what value the other party is deriving from the meeting. Zero in on exactly why they want to have the meeting. From there, you can put your problem solving skills in action to determine if there is a better way to deliver equivalent value.

However, keep in mind that it is likely that the value you are delivering is your company during that time. A lot of hiring happens because the people involved want to have 'friends' around them.

> The meeting isn't for you.

Wild how many different definitions of a 1:1 are in this thread.

Most of the other commenters are emphatically saying that the 1:1 is for the employee, not the manager.

The fact that nobody can agree on what the 1:1 is supposed to be is emblematic of all the problems that have been rolled up into the way that 1:1s are being cargo culted in modern business enivronments.

Employees talking to managers is good. The way we've turned it into a cargo cult performance where nobody can agree on what it's supposed to be but people will attack you for suggesting alternatives (see some of the weird comments shaming people in this thread) is why they've become so hated.

It's starting to remind me of the way Agile went from a human-first light touch philosophy to becoming a heavy, process-first ideology that starts replacing good planning with a bunch of rituals.

I only see one definition, which is the same definition it has always had: One person talking to one other person. Hence one to one for short.

There is no disagreement about that. The only difference in your case, as opposed to experiences others have had, is the dynamic between those two people. You are not seeking a meeting or want to have a meeting, thus the meeting is being called only for the benefit of the other person.

Let's simplify this: Nobody calls a meeting they don't find any value in. If someone is asking you to join a meeting, it is for them. It might also be for you if you both can see value, but that was said to not be the case in your case. When only the other party finds value, you are going to struggle to cut them off without some pushback, but this is where you can determine what value they are trying to get out of the meeting and see if there is a better way to deliver it.

I have had multiple managers and the thing is I wouldn't expect a truly honest answer from my manager ever, so to me it is also just all performative ritual that I have to go through and would rather avoid. So it does feel like waste of time to me. And I also feel like I have to be careful, because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term. It is easier to pretend everything is good, than to point out issues as it will i variably lead to a rabbit hole of nonsensical work.

> because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term

Are you sure it's useless work, or growth opportunities?

A good manager will be handing growth opportunities to you often. I had one employee once who for every new opportunity just rolled their eyes and asked if they have to do it? I'd tell them the work was not strictly required for their current role, but if they wanted to grow their visibility in the company and thus promotion support, it could be a good opportunity. They never wanted to do any of it so never did, never got any visibility and thus never any promotions. Up or out, so eventually they were out.

I feel like I have got promoted fast enough. More than what is considered a "terminal level". I do say yes to high value growth opportunities so that is not the case. In fact I think because of how I act during 1 on 1s is helping me with that, because I am causing no headaches to my manager with honesty.

Basically I am just trying to figure out how I can cause no extra work to anyone and being optimistic to my manager about everything while really I am not.

But it means that I am brainstorming bulletpoints that I think are best to achieve that beforehand, and it is performative.

> Search the net for questions / topics to manage up in 1-1s.

This is why so many people find themselves in performative 1 on 1s: It's assumed that the time must be spent, so managers and reports alike start searching for things to fill up that time.

The best 1 on 1 formats I've had were quick and to the point. We cancelled or ended early if there was nothing to discuss that hadn't already been discussed.

The worst were a game of finding things to talk about for 50 minutes because some manager read a few management books and decided they must fill up the time to bond with employees. So we'd go through silly questions from lists from books or do bonding exercises while I had to pretend to smile and enjoy it.

It is totally acceptable to use a list of questions to give you ideas for what to talk about. You might learn something you didn’t know if you didn’t ask.

For example, most managers aren’t having “career” convos with their people regularly. It’s fine to use a question bank if it helps you kick this convo off and get to the heart of the matter.

If your 1-1s have been performative, I guess shame on either the manager, you, or both.

If you’re scheduling meetings without an idea of what to talk about, that’s a problem.

Looking up ideas to discuss with your manager is a good idea. If you are being scheduled for time slots and have to search for ideas to fill it every week, that’s a symptom of a broken meeting that should be reduced in time, frequency, or both.

> I guess shame on either the manager, you, or both.

This culture of shaming people who aren’t doing the performative thing of filling up the meeting time is why so many of us are so tired of this rigid 1:1 dogma. Business and communication practices should meet the team’s needs, not be a game of following steps you found on the Internet about what to talk about in meetings.

Schedule meetings when communication is needed. Stop wasting everyone’s time by searching the internet for conversation ideas for arbitrary meetings.

question bank ?! lol, no wonder people complain about being performative.

If you have nothing to talk about, cancel it

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