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1-on-1 meeting questions

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Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#51

Post by cambalache »

cek wrote: post #13
stephc_int13 wrote: post #3

Wow, this is amazing. I can't help but think of all the sarcastic answers I would give the so-called manager with a slight grin on my face. Seriously, I think this list is a potent illustration of modern management bullcrap. Come on guys, don't do this to your team, they are not children...

Wow, you are either a troll or clueless. There is no more powerful form of ensuring manager/employee alignment than 1:1 meetings.

That is just your opinion. To offer an anecdotal counterbalance, I was a cog in a 100k+ employee fortune-20 company. Nothing was more demoralizing, soul-sucking and useless than an 1:1 meeting. I always felt like crying out and quitting. This in a career with 10 different managers, 5 different nationalities.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#52

Post by ratherbefuddled »

Contrived wooden questions like these would be a solid reason to not work for a manager.

If someone isn't able to empathise with other humans well enough to discover how they're doing without trying to artificially manipulate a conversation with a checklist, they certainly shouldn't be managing anybody.

Just talk. Do it often and do it honestly. That's all.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#53

Post by Insanity »

marcinzm wrote: post #45
Insanity wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for managers that did and didn't do 1:1 meetings. At some places I've missed them - because the managers were out of touch with the team. In other places where there were no 1:1 but a lot of 'hallway conversations' that seemed to replace them. So they had an 'finger on the pulse' of the team. That was pretty great - because of how informal it was and it worked. I've also had great 1:1s though. So YMMV I g…

The issue I see with hallway conversations on their own is that some people don't convey much information in such a short informal setting. Other do but it can leave a blind spot for some individuals and for problems too large (or sensitive) to articulate in such a setting. Some people just aren't comfortable forcing a meeting with their boss to discuss a large or sensitive issue.

I agree, I'd reiterate my point about the company culture here though. And the team - but I think that figuring out what works for your team would be part of the managers' job.

Just to be clear, I've never been in the manager position here. Always the engineering position, so I can't really speak for a broad set of people.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#54

Post by mattrp »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #2

I think 1on1s are the managers Swiss army knife and the best way to support employees in their development. If possible I do them as walk'n'talks, people are more open and ideas often flow better when walking outside the office.

Walks n talks are great but they aren’t 1:1’s in the way the author is envisioning them. The difference is a walk n talk is something you do when you have unscheduled free time and want to sidestep email for a direct conversation. A 1:1 is More like a weekly postmortem.. you celebrate wins, you figure out how to not repeat mistakes. But from a manager’s perspective, a 1:1 is all about ego management. For example, if I am a ceo, there’s some things I can do in a staff call to resolve conflict and bottlenecks but not much - otherwise I squander the energy of the staff meeting. Instead, I can have 1:1’s starting first with revenue... what are the roadblocks. Outside a 1:1 setting I can’t get the sales manager to get honest with me and own up roadblocks that his/her own doing vs the ones from other departments. From there it’s a cascade of meeting with successive department leads until I’m down to the one guy who owns fixing them all - product. If you’re the manager of a team further down in the org, you don’t have this end to end ownership for the entire business but the theories are the same... organize your week so you’re building a pipeline of issues and then meet with the people most able to resolve them. Doing it in a regular 1:1 session helps isolate egos and creates consistency.. if you’re trying to solve roadblocks that appear/resolve inside that weekly cadence, you’re doing too much of your own employees work for them. Ideally you’re focused on the next major milestone and the one after that.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#55

Post by rwilson4 »

yankit wrote: post #46
kreetx wrote: post #44

I don't understand the negative attitudes here. Yes, a 1-on-1 should be a normal conversation, but this is a great starting point to those who don't have the experience yet!

What kind of questions and data do you prepare for your 1-on-1s?

My 1:1s have the following format:

- Current tasks

- Career development/Goals (we have 6 week and yearly goals that the employees select for themselves with a little guidance from me)

- Special topic, different each time and very much aligned with the posted list. My question for next time is about values.

- Feedback, both delivering and soliciting (this has proven to be the hardest for me, as it takes time to think about and articulate feedback well)

I do the 1:1 at a nearby coffee shop since I think people feel more open outside the office.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#56

Post by pfarrell »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #18
cek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you are either a troll or clueless. There is no more powerful form of ensuring manager/employee alignment than 1:1 meetings.

I've co-founded companies, I've led teams and been CEO of a small video game studio. As a manager, I never felt the need to bother anyone with 1:1 meetings. I think it is very easy to shoot yourself in the foot with feedback, this is a difficult art. And I think the best strategy is to use feedback only to deal with outliers, ie exceptional or catastrophic achievements.

In my experience, the importance of the 1:1 is correlated with the size of the organization. At a 1000+ person company with teammates spread across 10 time zones, the meeting is a must because I have no physical cues. This only works, now, because of the ubiquity of video conferencing.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#57

Post by rwilson4 »

ratherbefuddled wrote: post #52

Contrived wooden questions like these would be a solid reason to not work for a manager. If someone isn't able to empathise with other humans well enough to discover how they're doing without trying to artificially manipulate a conversation with a checklist, they certainly shouldn't be managing anybody. Just talk. Do it often and do it honestly. That's all.

I treat them as prompts. I’ll give my team as much fore notice as possible what the topic will be and ask them to really think about the question in advance. Otherwise the conversations are often shallow. My team often writes out their thoughts and we go through it, it’s been pretty successful I think!

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#58

Post by rwilson4 »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #27
helij wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager as well as a human being I am interested in my co-workers and how they feel, their family, etc. so I don't really 'get' your negativity. Can you point some of the bullcrap on the list. There might be a way to rephrase some of the questions to make them not bullcrap. I think 1on1 is great. I was at the receiving end and now at giving end. When I did 1on1 with my manager I always felt good afterwards but I…

As a manager as well as a human being, you shouldn't have to ask those questions during a 1:1, the well being of your team should be something you're observing from the inside. And, more importantly, you should not delegate the responsibility of flagging it when something is wrong. You should know without asking.

Early on as a manager I made the mistake of assuming I knew what was going on in someone’s head just by working closely with them. I was wrong. You can’t even just directly ask because of the complicated dynamics. The best way I have found is frequent conversations that challenge people to dig down into their values and perspectives. Lists like this one are a good starting point, but as others have said genuine empathy is required.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#59

Post by gear54rus »

ratherbefuddled wrote: post #52

Contrived wooden questions like these would be a solid reason to not work for a manager. If someone isn't able to empathise with other humans well enough to discover how they're doing without trying to artificially manipulate a conversation with a checklist, they certainly shouldn't be managing anybody. Just talk. Do it often and do it honestly. That's all.

I take it this would help you map out areas of what should be asked. Maybe the person isn't opening up or maybe you sense something is amiss but you can't quite figure out what. We're all humans and we can forget things or have trouble viewing things through someone else's perspective.

Nobody is telling you to go through the whole list like a robot.

Re: 1-on-1 meeting questions

#60

Post by pfarrell »

ratherbefuddled wrote: post #52

Contrived wooden questions like these would be a solid reason to not work for a manager. If someone isn't able to empathise with other humans well enough to discover how they're doing without trying to artificially manipulate a conversation with a checklist, they certainly shouldn't be managing anybody. Just talk. Do it often and do it honestly. That's all.

I read the list as inspiration for opening new conversation when you run out of things to talk about, not as a script to be read verbatim. If you’re a manager, a danger is that you end up with blind spots from only talking about the positive or getting confirmation bias. I see this list as prompts to break out of that trap. A danger of the 1:1 is they devolve into status updates.
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