Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 117 posts

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#21

Post by ryanmercer »

My manager and I usually go over my production real quick then talk about shows we both used to go to back in the day and upcoming shows our old butts are thinking about going to. This time of year we'll probably talk about looking forward to going out and getting some morels in the woods soon.

She's not the typical manager though. I feel like if I ever get another company interested in me I'll have no idea how the real world really reacts because the opco of my company moves to the beat of its own drum and my office even more so.

Our 1:1 meeting are just monthly "here's your production from the last month we've completed the data on" which we get weekly via email from the team leads anyway, we sign it and never get a copy and it gets filed away to never be seen again as per standard bureaucratic make-work. Mangers just use it as a chance to point out any errors you are making repetitively and see if you have any questions or concerns.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#22

Post by echelon »

Daviey wrote: post #8
CyberFonic wrote: post #6

I have had many managers and no two conducted 1:1 meetings the same. In my experience it depends greatly on what sort of rapport you have with this manager. Can you read his personality? If you barely know the person and think he might be a stickler for detail and protocol, then keep your agenda to positive topics. Focus on your accomplishments and anything you plan that has a direct contribution to the company. Avoi…

In most teams, the manager's raison d'être is simply to make you more productive. This means unblocking problems when you are stuck, aligning vision (to avoid wasted work), to motivate and prioritise work when overloaded. The advice of avoiding bringing "negative" things and using the session as almost a celebration of your success is massively missing the potential usefulness of these sessions! If your boss doesn't…

The OP has a point, though. Perpetual complainers are such a drain. I hate being around them. They drag everything down.

Everything doesn't suck all the time.

There are pockets of good and bad. Be pragmatic. Don't nucleate a culture of defeatism and make everyone think you only care about your paycheck and not your coworkers and their own struggles.

Not everyone is like this. But I can point to a number of examples of this.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#23

Post by echelon »

BOOSTERHIDROGEN wrote: post #20

I cannot see the benefit of this meeting in a typical large or similar to governments-owned company

Then you haven't had a successful one.

The manager's job is to unblock and empower as much as anything.

Managers need insight into the health of their teams and how their reports think, feel, and operate. 1:1s are a fantastic sounding board for this.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#24

Post by tobr »

dsr_ wrote: post #12

Various commenters have interpreted this in two different ways: a) this is a performance/compensation review meeting b) this is a weekly/biweekly/whatever infinitely repeating meeting I think most managers who ask for 1:1 meetings are talking about case (b). I do. I don't schedule 1:1 meetings for local employees unless they ask; I do schedule 1:1 meetings for remote employees. My feeling (which I have mentioned to e…

I think you would miss a lot of important things with this approach. You’re basically asking other people to take the entire initiative to raise problems, which will only work for things they are 100% comfortable bringing up with you, and which they feel is in their interest for you to know about.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#25

Post by eel »

If I am joining a new team or company and therefore getting a new manager, my 1:1 meetings generally support my onboarding. I would ask about the team's current processes, how they got there, who to ask about learning the system architecture, etc. I also try to get a feel about what the new manager's style is. How does the manager want to stay apprised on my work, what is his/her approach to career development, etc. And very importantly, I ask how often we should have 1:1s.

If the new manager is joining my existing team as my manager, 1:1 meetings now support my manager's onboarding. The topics are very similar, but I have to be a little more tactful to avoid appearing arrogant or patronizing. I will ask what he/she thinks of the product we work on, or about the system architecture. Once again, I will try to get a feel for the manager's management style, and I will ask about the approach to career development and future 1:1s.

In either case, my number one goal early on in 1:1s is to build rapport. I don't intend this as a "winning favor" type of thing, but rather I need to do my best to build the relationship from my side so that I feel comfortable raising concerns and I can understand where my manager is coming from when inevitably he/she starts making new requests.

I don't like to share a 1:1 agenda until it's clear that the manager respects 1:1s. Otherwise there's a risk that the manager preemptively invites other people to help answer the topics in the agenda.

I try not to rant or complain in 1:1s anymore. I found that my managers' reactions were rarely predictable. Some managers try to solve the problem immediately, and some managers do nothing. Some managers would move me onto another project. Now that I have more experience, if I have a complaint, then I also try to propose a solution.

Finally, I try to avoid using 1:1s for status updates or escalating blockers to my manager. In my mind, these are best done as needed or as soon as possible.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#26

Post by benhurmarcel »

tobr wrote: post #24
dsr_ wrote: post #12

Various commenters have interpreted this in two different ways: a) this is a performance/compensation review meeting b) this is a weekly/biweekly/whatever infinitely repeating meeting I think most managers who ask for 1:1 meetings are talking about case (b). I do. I don't schedule 1:1 meetings for local employees unless they ask; I do schedule 1:1 meetings for remote employees. My feeling (which I have mentioned to e…

I think you would miss a lot of important things with this approach. You’re basically asking other people to take the entire initiative to raise problems, which will only work for things they are 100% comfortable bringing up with you, and which they feel is in their interest for you to know about.

Exactly; my current manager works this way (no 1:1) and is surprised how in 3 years nobody has ever come willingly to talk about this stuff.

Nobody wants to be the one coming to his boss with problems; nobody wants to be the only team member to go talk about things that probably bother him given that he never asked about them.

Then obviously he has no idea about the day-to-day work that most of us do, the difficulties we're facing, the lack of motivation of some members, the career or personal aspirations of them, the growing idea of leaving the team of others…

If you never ask, there's a lot you'll never know. It doesn't need to be weekly, but you need to reserve some time at least every few months at the bare minimum.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#27

Post by eel »

mabbo wrote: post #17

#1- calling out anything co-worker related. I try to always bring up some good things. Ie: this new guy is getting up to speed really fast and I'm super impressed, here's some quick examples. Or negative: the guy in the remote team and I keep having conflicts, not sure what to do about it, any thoughts? #2- my career. I'm working towards promotion X, I've made these steps lately, what do you see that I can be doing?…

Good stuff. I think this is a good general template once you've established a relationship with your manager. If the manager is new, I don't expect direct answers to #2 and #3, so I would ask more meta questions-- how they approach career development and feedback, etc. and get them thinking about those topics for future 1:1s.

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#28

Post by Wilem82 »

First of all, if you want to talk about something, you don't need to wait for the next scheduled meeting, you can just talk. Therefore the system of scheduled one on one meetings is nothing but bureaucracy. Therefore the question is "is there anything you discuss with the manager, ever?" And the answer to that depends on the manager's competence. If you can delegate your task to the manager and they are actually able to solve it, then you can use it to keep the progress rolling. If they aren't able to do anything meaningful, there's nothing to talk about, really. Which is usually the latter case and it comes down to "want something done, do it yourself".

Re: Ask HN: What agenda do you have for 1:1 meetings with your supervisor?

#30

Post by garyrichardson »

Wilem82 wrote: post #28

First of all, if you want to talk about something, you don't need to wait for the next scheduled meeting, you can just talk. Therefore the system of scheduled one on one meetings is nothing but bureaucracy. Therefore the question is "is there anything you discuss with the manager, ever?" And the answer to that depends on the manager's competence. If you can delegate your task to the manager and they are actually able…

This is not a model of working I’m familiar with. I work as collaboratively as possibly with my reports and my manager. 1:1 meetings are my most important. If I’m not discussing the non-obvious challenges we face, we are sharing our goals or tuning our shared vision.
Post reply on HN