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

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

#31

Post by jrockway »

ricardobeat wrote: post #23
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…

Is there really anything more important than career progression? You're there to get paid; your manager is there to help you get paid more.

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

#32

Post by Clubber »

_moof wrote: post #21
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 di…

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

It's totally for the manager, they gotta fill their calendars to look like they're doing stuff. I hate when they want me to rank myself from 1-5 on various things just to tell me, "I don't think you're a 5, you're performing as expected. COL raise." I just put 3's on everything and wait for it to be over. Our company (whose application I built from scratch) just started doing this with a new manager after 6 years and I put in my notice on the first one.

My buddy put's all 1s. It's a stupid business culture bullshit thing like mandatory after hours "team building" exercises and stupid infantilization things they love to do now. The best managers on the best teams I worked with never did this.

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

#33

Post by palidanx »

As a manager, this is the framework I use

1. Staff updates their personal journal by Friday before our 1:1

2. Staff takes a one time skill assessment of all the tech dimensions we use on a likert skill so I know what they are strong and weak at (like might be weak in batch processing, containers, etc).

3. Staff periodically updates their career journey which has

-Start Date

-Elapsed Time

-What were your expectations in the elapsed time you were here?

-Review of skills matrix and what you want improved

-Current Role

-Desired Next Role

-Projects worked on in this year

-What skill sets did I learn in this years projects?

-Certifications

-Next year I want to accomplish

-In 5 years I want to accomplish

[ these are all the artifacts I use as a reference point ofr myself]

-- then during the 1:1 I ask

1. 'how are you?' --> And then I listen to see how their response is. Are they sighing a lot, are they stressed are they bored. I then follow up to make sure everything is okay emotionally or they have issues. I have noticed a lot of employees are not honest in what they say

2. I then assess how they are doing in terms of their

- project delivery

- tech skills

- soft skills

and get feedback accordingly.

Most engineers I have are doing well on projects and tech skills, but often need work on soft skills. I ask them to focus on soft skills by thinking of

- communication

- writing

- reading

For those who need help in communication I advise them to attend a Toastmasters class in person. Also I have been advocating for staff to read 'Supercommunicators' as a way to think about communication as a framework.

For soft skills, I believe the way of improving is being well rounded in the humanities, and not just going hard core tech.

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

#34

Post by JohnFen »

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…

> 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.

But all of your examples are things I would have already discussed with my manager outside of any kind of formal 1:1s, so that doesn't leave anything for the 1:1.

That makes a 1:1 basically a performative exercise: I have to perform in it well enough that my manager won't be left thinking as you do in the quote.

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

#35

Post by _moof »

frakt0x90 wrote: post #24
_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.

Maybe you've been lucky to have better managers than me. IMHO managers should be giving continuous feedback; it's been a long time since I had a manager whose input on my career growth mattered; and I seek out my own training opportunities. When I've brought up issues in my 1:1s that are making it difficult to work effectively, I've gotten lip service at best. When I've said week after week that I need specific support, I haven't gotten it. It's honestly been over a decade since I've had a manager who was helpful in any way.

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

#36

Post by foxbarrington »

Use this to learn more about what is going on at the company and how you can provide more value in exchange for what you want.

Want more money? Use this to figure out what the company and manager would want in exchange so you can work towards it.

Want more visibility for promotions? Use it to figure out the highest visibility projects and get assigned to those

Want to work on newer/different technologies? Use it to figure out where those could best fit in or get reassigned if they are already in use.

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

#37

Post by ricardobeat »

jrockway wrote: post #31
ricardobeat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is there really anything more important than career progression? You're there to get paid; your manager is there to help you get paid more.

In my book, yes. Things like delivering value to customers, building great products and doing work that you'll be proud of. Career goals are quite often orthogonal to those.

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

#38

Post by [deleted] »

Clubber wrote: post #32
_moof wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 di…

>So what I'm hearing, it's not actually for me, it's for you. It's totally for the manager, they gotta fill their calendars to look like they're doing stuff. I hate when they want me to rank myself from 1-5 on various things just to tell me, "I don't think you're a 5, you're performing as expected. COL raise." I just put 3's on everything and wait for it to be over. Our company (whose application I built from scratch…

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

_moof wrote: post #21
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 di…

That's like saying high school is for the teacher's benefit rather than the student's, because attendance is mandatory.

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

#40

Post by Swenrekcah »

irrational wrote: post #27
Swenrekcah wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mai…

It's a 30 minute slot but usually runs a little over that. We first chat about how life is going for a short while, then topics anywhere from job satisfaction, personal or teamwide improvement potential, specific products or technical issues, performance inhibitors, anything that is on our minds with respect to the job at hand really.
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