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

Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 113 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#21

Post by _moof »

Jemaclus wrote: post #19

Manager here: first, I'll say that you're ahead of the rest of the class just by asking this question. Most people don't bother trying to get much out of the 1:1s with their bosses. Here's the basic answer: the 1:1 is for you, not for me. If I'm doing my job well, I already know the status of your work. This is a chance for you to talk about anything that you want. Some of my reports ask about technical things: how c…

> I'll put it this way: the 1:1 for you, but it's also too valuable to skip just because you don't want it. We will have a 1:1 on a regular cadence, whether you like it or not. I don't want a meeting for the sake of having a meeting, but 1:1s are the single best way for managers to connect to team members. If you want to cancel all of the time because you have nothing to talk about, then that indicates a number of different possibilities, very few of which are good.

So what I'm hearing, it's not actually for me, it's for you.

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#22

Post by Swenrekcah »

_moof wrote: post #15

God, I hate 1:1s. In years on the job I've never had one that was useful. Managers already know what's going on because they're getting daily updates plus a weekly staff meeting. The rest of the time, please just leave me alone so I can work!

My experience is quite the opposite, 1:1s are the only meetings I regularly look forward to.

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#23

Post by ricardobeat »

peterbozso wrote: post #2

We do it like this at GitLab and it's very effective: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/

> Consider encouraging direct reports to keep their 1:1 document open in their browser throughout the week

A bit unexpected, doesn't seem healthy to me. Surely there are more important things happening in the average week other than career progression?

EDIT: I better stop reading this as I've always liked GitLab, but am catching some heavy Lumon vibes :D this is one of the possible agenda items: "SING - if added, the person who added it leads a singalong with all willing participants in the meeting" (at https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/suggeste...)

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#24

Post by frakt0x90 »

_moof wrote: post #15

God, I hate 1:1s. In years on the job I've never had one that was useful. Managers already know what's going on because they're getting daily updates plus a weekly staff meeting. The rest of the time, please just leave me alone so I can work!

If your 1:1 is just status updates, that's not useful, I agree. It should be focused on things that only the manager can give you feedback on. Career growth, work feedback, training opportunities, budget for XYZ, etc. Things you want to get out of work that can't be supplied by your peers.

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#25

Post by jrockway »

Strategy, not tactics. This isn't a meeting for you to update your manager with project status (you're doing that in the issue tracker, right?), it's for you to grow your career (and maybe get status from your manager for things that aren't in the bug tracker). Are there other teams I should be talking with? Any customer feedback from that incident a couple weeks ago? Did people like the foobar feature I added? I see "frobnix the glorlaz" is on the career ladder, how do you suggest I start doing that? What are the major priorities for Q3? What should we work on next?

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#26

Post by deathanatos »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #17
poisonborz wrote: post #5

To any managers here, please avoid and forever forget blank cheque questions like "how are you". Makes the mood instantly superficial.

Bad advice. It is not the problem with question when you feel it that way. It’s the problem with engagement of the manager. It’s perfectly normal to ask „How are you?“

This already reminds me of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22347296

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#27

Post by irrational »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #22
_moof wrote: post #15

God, I hate 1:1s. In years on the job I've never had one that was useful. Managers already know what's going on because they're getting daily updates plus a weekly staff meeting. The rest of the time, please just leave me alone so I can work!

My experience is quite the opposite, 1:1s are the only meetings I regularly look forward to.

Please tell us more, because I'm in accordance with the other person. What do you talk about in your 1:1s? Are you driving the conversation or is the manager? What are the topics of conversation? How long does it usually last?

My manager always say that my 1:1 are the easiest for him. I've asked him what in the world the other people are talking about that don't make them as easy, but his response is so vague (to maintain confidentiality) as to be useless. Not that I really want a longer 1:1...

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#28

Post by jrockway »

poisonborz wrote: post #5

To any managers here, please avoid and forever forget blank cheque questions like "how are you". Makes the mood instantly superficial.

I had a manager that always started with "How are things?" and I thought that was a great jumping off point. "Not good, production is always down and I've been paged 700 times in the last day," is a potential answer to that question, and a 1:1 is a good way to start forming a plan on how to deal with that. Realistically, if you competently addressed all the pages that are coming in, they might not even know it's going on. So it's good to mention it and that it's bugging you!

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#29

Post by Hamuko »

poisonborz wrote: post #5

To any managers here, please avoid and forever forget blank cheque questions like "how are you". Makes the mood instantly superficial.

I hate it so much. My manager always asks it and presses the issue whenever I try to move past it with some generic response. As if I want to start having a deep "how are you" discussion with a business stranger, especially one with whom I do not share a geographical location, a culture or first language.

Re: Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?

#30

Post by rahimnathwani »

Jemaclus wrote: post #19

Manager here: first, I'll say that you're ahead of the rest of the class just by asking this question. Most people don't bother trying to get much out of the 1:1s with their bosses. Here's the basic answer: the 1:1 is for you, not for me. If I'm doing my job well, I already know the status of your work. This is a chance for you to talk about anything that you want. Some of my reports ask about technical things: how c…

This is a great answer. Three things to add:

1. OP didn't say what they wanted to achieve, except for generally improving their career. It's worth trying to make that specific. OP's idea of that will be different from yours, and different from mine. Each person has different objectives.

2. In most situations, your manager is trying to make you successful, for some definition of successful. This is a joint endeavour. It's worth trying to understand what your manager sees as success, even if there is not 100% overlap with what you see as success. 'High Output Management' has good sections on both effective 1:1s and delegation. They are only a couple of pages each. Worth reading and re-reading.

3. Good 1:1s require some effort (including preparation and follow up) but the investment should be worthwhile. (Of course, it's possible that the majority of people have regular 1:1s that are close to useless. But this doesn't have to be you.)

Post reply on HN