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

How to get the most out of your 1:1s

erik.wiffin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 212 posts

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#31

Post by account-5 »

tinkertamper wrote: post #9

I used to have a boss who’d ask me to rate my company satisfaction with the company 1-10 at every 1:1. This always struck me as one of the laziest/misguided management moves I’ve encountered, and I’m sure he felt it was both accurate and clever. If you manage people, and don’t understand that basic power dynamics will always trump encouragements for “openness”, you are naive at best and willfully blind at worst.

Exactly this. As an employee, in this situation, you are always one step away from saying something to the person who can make your life miserable if they take offence. At no point am I ever open in these things, always guarded and watchful of what I'm saying because of who I'm saying it to. It's a corporate pipe dream to think otherwise.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#32

Post by alar44 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #14

Completely unimportant, but anyone else call them one to ones ? Where did this one on one thing come from? A one on one is a boxing match or a schoolyard fight, not an open chat. 8:2:1 is a ratio of cocktail ingredients. 16:9 is an aspect ratio. 1:7 is a steep hill to climb. To , by , and in respectively. The latter two would be weird choices but at least they’d be consistent with the syntax of x:y. “on” though?! Whe…

No.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#33

Post by alar44 »

hunglee2 wrote: post #13

one good way to 'get the conversation going', as well as provide invaluable feedback, is to reverse roles and start the session with the employee review of your own performance as their manager. You can even say 'hey, this 1:1 is for me rather than you!'. It's fun and serious at the same time, and if you do it without ego you can learn a lot about how you are impacting your employees work, what you need to do to make…

I hate this because it's completely transparent. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence bucks this.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#34

Post by yunohn »

vasco wrote: post #30
tinkertamper wrote: post #9

I used to have a boss who’d ask me to rate my company satisfaction with the company 1-10 at every 1:1. This always struck me as one of the laziest/misguided management moves I’ve encountered, and I’m sure he felt it was both accurate and clever. If you manage people, and don’t understand that basic power dynamics will always trump encouragements for “openness”, you are naive at best and willfully blind at worst.

Not to defend the constant ratings, but imagine managers are not in fact all stupid for a second, and that they realize the power dynamic is there. You still need to do the same job and fulfill the expectations of your own manager, as a manager. It's easy to assume stupidity, and I'm sure there's plenty dumb moves made, but what you find cringy another report finds cool and easy. I bet there are people who would love…

> imagine managers are not in fact all stupid for a second

I don’t really see where the commenter implied this.

To support their stance, I have also had lots of managers at various-sized companies (FAANG incl), who didn’t understand the inherent 1:1 power dynamic. They would expect full honesty, while covering up anything above my pay-grade.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#35

Post by mafro »

hunglee2 wrote: post #13

one good way to 'get the conversation going', as well as provide invaluable feedback, is to reverse roles and start the session with the employee review of your own performance as their manager. You can even say 'hey, this 1:1 is for me rather than you!'. It's fun and serious at the same time, and if you do it without ego you can learn a lot about how you are impacting your employees work, what you need to do to make…

As the peer comments attest, this approach will only be successful where you have a solid psychological safety between manager and reports.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#36

Post by bawolff »

tinkertamper wrote: post #9

I used to have a boss who’d ask me to rate my company satisfaction with the company 1-10 at every 1:1. This always struck me as one of the laziest/misguided management moves I’ve encountered, and I’m sure he felt it was both accurate and clever. If you manage people, and don’t understand that basic power dynamics will always trump encouragements for “openness”, you are naive at best and willfully blind at worst.

I don't know. It would be bad to have that replace other real conversations, but i could see it being easier for some people to just answer a 6 instead of a 7 instead of the IC explicitly bringing up out of nowhere that they are slightly less happy thus week than last week for unclear reasons that they themselves don't understand.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#37

Post by KTallguy »

faangiq wrote: post #23

They’re basically kabuki nonsense like most of corporate America. No one benefits but everyone goes through the motions.

I disagree. I approach 1:1s as an opportunity to just shoot the shit if that person is interested, or if there is something on their mind they can choose to chat about it. As the article states, it's that person's chance to completely dictate the conversation.

I think the best is to personalize things as best you can (depending on your team size). Some personalities are less interested in talking, which is fine―I just try to make sure nothing is blocking them or they're not dissatisfied. Some people love to talk about their life, and I usually have to time-box that.

I genuinely care about how my team is doing and want to help them grow, so 1:1s are my main opportunity to figure out how I can help them... especially in the era of remote work.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#38

Post by mas-ev »

gorgoiler wrote: post #14

Completely unimportant, but anyone else call them one to ones ? Where did this one on one thing come from? A one on one is a boxing match or a schoolyard fight, not an open chat. 8:2:1 is a ratio of cocktail ingredients. 16:9 is an aspect ratio. 1:7 is a steep hill to climb. To , by , and in respectively. The latter two would be weird choices but at least they’d be consistent with the syntax of x:y. “on” though?! Whe…

My random etymology guess here is one on one is from the origin of one vs one. One coming out ON top of the other. So one on one becoming simpler slang implying the same as versus.

Now one to one implies an equal relationship and especially in our field it feels weird imo to call them one to ones. Typical, you aren't equal levels in a 1:1 meeting. So maybe the one on one caught on because of the subtlety of one being on top of or above the other.

Face to face sounds too literal and agressive.

1:1 is an easy clear way to represent one on one. Although, we are forcing a double meaning on it. But hey that's the great thing about language. It's ever evolving.

Personally, in meeting titles I write PersonA/PersonB but I do type 1:1 over one on one when referring to the meeting type.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#39

Post by Negitivefrags »

The idea of a monthly one on one scheduled meeting is rediculous.

If you are not talking to all your people every day as a matter of course, they are basically unmanaged. For the love of god don't schedule any meetings. You shouldn't need to since you are just part of your employees flow of work.

The employee / manager relationship should be one in which either party can feel free to just raise any concern the moment that it comes up. Meetings are not how that occurs.

Re: How to get the most out of your 1:1s

#40

Post by shinryuu »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #21
kqr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that if the worker wants to turn it into a status update, they should be allowed to. However... why do they feel like turning it into a status update? Is it because the manager isn't sufficiently looped in to what's happening on a daily basis?

because we have nothing else to say. we don't need any help from you, the manager. the project is going fine, but you're our least helpful resource. I'll go to the subject matter expert if i need specific things answered. I'm not fighting with any teammates. I'm not blocked. i was perfectly productive before this meeting, but now I'm interrupted. we already talked about career development. we don't need to go over th…

Pretty much this!
Post reply on HN