One-on-one meetings (1-1s) with your direct manager are an essential feature of a good working relationship. However, many managers neglect these meetings, or make them feel like a waste of your time. What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of a good 1-1?
1-1s serve two purposes. First, they create human connection between you and your manager. That doesn’t mean you spend the whole time talking about your hobbies or families or making small talk about the weekend. But letting your manager into your life a little bit is important, because when there are stressful things happening (a death in the family, a new child, a breakup, housing woes), it will be much easier to ask your manager for time off or tell him what you need if he has context on you as a person. Great managers notice when your normal energy level changes, and will hopefully care enough to ask you about it.
I am not a buddy-buddy person at work. I feel the need to say this because I think that sometimes we give ourselves a pass at caring about our colleagues because we’re introverts, or we don’t want to make friends at work. You might think that I am the sort who loves to make lots of work friends, and therefore I don’t understand how this feels to you, but I assure you: I understand that you don’t feel like that human side is all that interesting in the workplace. Being an introvert is not an excuse for making no effort to treat people like real human beings, however. The bedrock of strong teams is human connection, which leads to trust. And trust, real trust, requires the ability and willingness to be vulnerable in front of each other. So, your manager will hopefully treat you like a human who has a life outside of work, and spend a few minutes talking about that life when you meet.
The second purpose of a 1-1 is a regular opportunity for you to speak privately with your manager about whatever needs discussing. You should expect your 1-1s to be scheduled with some predictability so that you can plan for them, because it is not your manager’s job to completely control the 1-1 agenda. Sometimes he will, but it is good for you to put a little thought into what you might actually want to discuss before your 1-1 meetings. It is hard to do this if your manager does not regularly meet with you, or constantly cancels or changes your 1-1s. You may not want to do 1-1s regularly, or you may only need them every few weeks. That’s OK, so long as you don’t eliminate them completely. Use them as you need them, and if you find that you want to meet more frequently, ask your manager for that.
For most people, good 1-1s are not status meetings. If you are a manager reporting up to senior management, you may use your 1-1 to discuss the status of critical projects, or projects that are still in the nascent stage where there’s not necessarily a lot written down yet. If you’re an individual contributor, though, a 1-1 as a status meeting is repetitive and probably boring. If your 1-1 is a dreadful obligation for delivering a boring status report, try using email or chat for that purpose instead to free up the time, and bringing some topics of your own to the 1-1.
I encourage you to share the responsibility of having good 1-1s with your manager. Come with an agenda of things you would like to discuss. Prepare for the time yourself. If he cancels or reschedules on you regularly, push him to find a time that is more stable, and if this isn’t possible, verify the day before (or that morning, for an afternoon meeting) that you will be meeting and share with him anything you are interested in discussing so he knows you want to meet.