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

Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 287 posts

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#161

Post by baq »

SoftTalker wrote: post #66
mshake2 wrote: post #7

These have always been an enormous waste of time from my perspective. They only serve to make a manager feel like they know what everyone is doing, all the time. Anything process-wise should be handled through scrum. Anything personal can be handled with ad-hoc 1-on-1 meetings as needed, but should be pretty rare. 1-on-1s for process really do harm to transparency and accountability. If I had a nickel for every time…

I agree. There is a place for 1:1 meetings as needed but a standing weekly 1:1 is a "management smell" in my experience.

Yes, when they don’t want to have 1:1 it means they don’t want to give me their time. That’s not managing, that’s coasting.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#162

Post by andix »

I never had 1 on 1s with the Manager more then once or twice a year. It was mostly about salary, contracts and maybe some performance review.

Casual one on ones if you meet in the office I mostly used for chit-chat. Managers do so much heavy stuff, so keeping it light should benefit the relationship.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#163

Post by jonathankoren »

xyzelement wrote: post #149
htrp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add where you want to be career-wise so that they can support you in this.

What people want their career to be is often immature. It takes wisdom and experience to figure out what you should want. So coming into the conversation with that is limiting. I'd rather get the manager to be a partner in helping me figure out what I should want.

Then you should talk about how you you need help coming up with a plan!

If I was your manager, I’d tell you that while your problem about setting career goals is real, your framing of the problem as something I the manager should tell you what your goal is is backwards. I’m not living your life, you are. The path of least resistance for me is to let you stagnate right where you are and then tell you you’re perfectly happy if I wanted to gaslight you, but then I’d be a shitty manager.

What I should do is tease out shat motivates you and how that aligns to what we need as an org, not just my team. I may not be able to give you want you want, but I can help put you on that path.

Seriously, if you need mentorship, reach out. I’m easy to find.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#164

Post by anon223345 »

We got rid of weekly / monthly one-on-ones and instead just assigned a counselor

A LOT of employees didn’t like doing them, and this has worked very well. Issues bubble up through the counselor and managers can focus on the project

This has worked very well (I’m also at a very big bigCo)

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#165

Post by lamontcg »

I started skipping most weekly 1:1 with my managers. But I wound up being there for a decade and we started blowing them off probably after I'd been there 4 years and was effectively the team lead, and didn't really want or need career help. Given that my managers, particularly the last one were all overworked that kind of worked out for them as well. Every now and then we had them but it was typically around raises and stock options and things like that, with the very occasional one around higher level project strategy and deliverables. The retros we had were usually where everyone complained about staffing, and I didn't really need a weekly 1:1 to complain about it more.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#166

Post by ryanSrich »

8note wrote: post #154
ryanSrich wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They only serve to make a manager feel like they know what everyone is doing, all the time. As a manager, I DESPISED doing 1v1s at my old company. We don't do them at my new company. It's an incredible waste of time. Create a culture that allows employees to come to you when THEY need to. If this isn't within the realm of possibility, at least make 1v1s optional for employees that just don't have anything to discus…

The employee not thinking there's something to talk about doesn't mean there's nothing to talk about. A good people-person manager can get the employee to bring up things they otherwise wouldn't think of.

What does this have to do with my comment? I never said don’t talk to your employees ever. A recurring 1v1 where you have to poke and prod information out of a subordinate is not constructive. If you have concerns, bring them up when they happen. No need to pull teeth every few weeks just to make yourself feel better as a manager.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#167

Post by jonathankoren »

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #150
htrp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add where you want to be career-wise so that they can support you in this.

Very generic answer IMO. In practice, it gets pretty tiring and boring to talk about it after couple of meetings with manager and bringing it up in every weekly 1:1 will have your manager avoid/cancel meetings with you. I tried following this generic advice and noticed it hurts more than it does good.

If your manager is blowing off your 1:1s, your manager sucks.

One of my worst managers blew off 1:1s with all of his reports for months. Being naïve, I didn’t even raise this with his manager. I should have.

I’ll say this about him. His skill at managing up was inversely proportional to his skill at managing down.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#168

Post by xyzelement »

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #150
htrp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add where you want to be career-wise so that they can support you in this.

Very generic answer IMO. In practice, it gets pretty tiring and boring to talk about it after couple of meetings with manager and bringing it up in every weekly 1:1 will have your manager avoid/cancel meetings with you. I tried following this generic advice and noticed it hurts more than it does good.

Lol so talking about (1) what you actually care about (2) deep blockers to performance (3) what your manager most cares about and (4) human connection is "boring". What do you talk about that's more interesting? Compiler warnings?

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#169

Post by velomash »

Former staff eng current manager here. When I was programming it was really common for me to steer 1:1s with my manager to personal topics. We talked about the city we lived in, projects we were working on, etc. I felt like it was more important to create a relationship with them than to talk about daily activities. That way, when I had larger initiatives I wanted to accomplish or things I wanted done that needed participation outside our group I would bring them to the 1:1.

Now that I'm a manager I see that everyone brings a unique sensibility to these meetings. The employee's work style, emotional temperament, ambition, project, and team dynamics all come together to form what they want to talk about. In general I try to have the employee run the meeting. It's their time to get information about what's going on in the company or give me feedback on how the team / project is progressing. As other's have stated, your manager shouldn't be leading a lot of the conversation unless they're delivering feedback on how you can improve.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#170

Post by kingnothing »

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #150
htrp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add where you want to be career-wise so that they can support you in this.

Very generic answer IMO. In practice, it gets pretty tiring and boring to talk about it after couple of meetings with manager and bringing it up in every weekly 1:1 will have your manager avoid/cancel meetings with you. I tried following this generic advice and noticed it hurts more than it does good.

Talk about where you want to get to career wise. Develop a plan with them to get you there. Say you want to move from eng 3 to senior eng in the next 2 years. Great! What skills do you need to develop to operate independently at a senior level by then? How can you work with your manager to ensure you're getting right-sized projects to develop then demonstrate those skills?

What's coming down the pipeline next quarter that you can try to claim instead of having it go by default to a more senior member on the team? Can you pair with them on that work if you aren't yet ready to do it on your own? Seniors are often looking for mentorship and teaching opportunities as those are skills they need to develop to make it to Manager or Staff if they're interested in continuing to advance their own careers.

Post reply on HN