Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
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Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#2“I don’t do 1-on-1s, and almost everything I say, I say to everybody all the time. I don’t really believe there’s any information that I operate on that only one or two people should hear about… I believe that when you give everybody equal access to information, that empowers people. And so that’s number one… Number two, if the CEO’s direct staff is 60 people, the number of layers you’ve removed in a company is probably something like seven.”
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#3>> if the CEO’s direct staff is 60 people, the number of layers you’ve removed in a company is probably something like seven.”
This is a great insight since so much gets lost in the management layer which causes frustration for devs while the CEO doesn't have a clue what's actually going on in the trenches.
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#4“I don’t do 1-on-1s, and almost everything I say, I say to everybody all the time. I don’t really believe there’s any information that I operate on that only one or two people should hear about… I believe that when you give everybody equal access to information, that empowers people. And so that’s number one… Number two, if the CEO’s direct staff is 60 people, the number of layers you’ve removed in a company is proba…
I think this statement is really missing the point of 1-on-1's. They should be time set aside for the employee to talk about whatever is on their mind. It is ideally an opportunity for them to bring up any issues or concerns they might be having but is either unsuitable to or they are uncomfortable bringing it up with the larger group. Often the response is indeed, "Thanks for letting me know, I'll communicate that to the team." but it would have never been brought up if that time wasn't set aside to chat.
Sure, when you are directly reporting into the CEO you are probably in a position where you are expected to lead it out yourself unless it affects the entire company strategy, so it is less useful, but if you are working with ICs then they are still very useful.
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#5“I don’t do 1-on-1s, and almost everything I say, I say to everybody all the time. I don’t really believe there’s any information that I operate on that only one or two people should hear about… I believe that when you give everybody equal access to information, that empowers people. And so that’s number one… Number two, if the CEO’s direct staff is 60 people, the number of layers you’ve removed in a company is proba…
I think this statement is really missing the point of 1-on-1's. They should be time set aside for the employee to talk about whatever is on their mind. It is ideally an opportunity for them to bring up any issues or concerns they might be having but is either unsuitable to or they are uncomfortable bringing it up with the larger group. Often the response is indeed, "Thanks for letting me know, I'll communicate that t…
The link seems to address that concern. It reads to me as if the view is that if the concern can't be shared with the group then it needn't be shared at all. Discussing it in the group benefits everyone because everyone can hear the concern and the response to it.
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#6It probably makes sense for a CEO who is direction setting and probably has other defined methods of feedback collections.
For normals ICs 1:1s are crucial for career development. You absolutely need a space to talk candidly with your manager.
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#7>> if the CEO’s direct staff is 60 people, the number of layers you’ve removed in a company is probably something like seven.” This is a great insight since so much gets lost in the management layer which causes frustration for devs while the CEO doesn't have a clue what's actually going on in the trenches.
But doesn't also much get lost when the manager can't keep up with 60 reports?
Mathematics teaches us that the distance in a tree, from root to leaf, where each node is a linked list, is minimized when the branching factor is e, the base of the natural logarithm. For example, e is the most efficient base for writing integers.
Management isn't quite the same, but branch size is are relevant.
Management isn't
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this statement is really missing the point of 1-on-1's. They should be time set aside for the employee to talk about whatever is on their mind. It is ideally an opportunity for them to bring up any issues or concerns they might be having but is either unsuitable to or they are uncomfortable bringing it up with the larger group. Often the response is indeed, "Thanks for letting me know, I'll communicate that t…
The link seems to address that concern. It reads to me as if the view is that if the concern can't be shared with the group then it needn't be shared at all. Discussing it in the group benefits everyone because everyone can hear the concern and the response to it.
Which is an extremely naive view. Some concerns are sensitive.
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#9Since he is a founder and CEO, I'm not sure his opinion on 1:1 meetings is relevant. He's not a people manager.
Re: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: "I discourage 1-on-1s"
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this statement is really missing the point of 1-on-1's. They should be time set aside for the employee to talk about whatever is on their mind. It is ideally an opportunity for them to bring up any issues or concerns they might be having but is either unsuitable to or they are uncomfortable bringing it up with the larger group. Often the response is indeed, "Thanks for letting me know, I'll communicate that t…
The link seems to address that concern. It reads to me as if the view is that if the concern can't be shared with the group then it needn't be shared at all. Discussing it in the group benefits everyone because everyone can hear the concern and the response to it.
There definitely are concerns which shouldn't / don't need to be shared widely, when they're about specific people or about interpersonal issues. There's also potentially lots of stuff that should be communicated to the team, but they don't need to know the details of the issues. You definitely don't want to start a "John is avoiding work recently" conversation in a group, exactly because everyone can hear it and respond to it. Maybe the manager needs to have a private chat with him, or maybe the manager already knows that John had a death in the family that affects him. Not everything needs to have more people involved.