Why 1-1 meetings with your manager are important?
Meetings! Meeting usually have a bad reputation. According to a survey by company Otter.ai, about 46% of survey takers said that there were too many unnecessary meetings on their calendars. Even from personal experience, I haven’t met anyone who is super excited to attend all meetings.
But, 1-1 meetings with your manager are a whole different ball game. With the right agenda and cadence, it could be extremely valuable to the progress of your career.
1-1 meetings provides dedicated time to discuss things that directly impact you, like your achievements, goals, feedback, and concerns. In also gives you an opportunity to get to know your manager better, understand their preferences, expectations and how to have an effective working relationship! It also helps build better communication and earn trust. if you can attend only 1 meeting, it should be your 1-1 with your manager! As we go through the topics and questions to discuss during 1-1s, the importance will be even more apparent.
Duration and Frequency
Preferably, you should meet with your manager once a week for 30 mins. If that’s not possible, try for once in 2 weeks for 30-45 mins. If it gets cancelled for any reason, make sure to reschedule it within a day or two. 1-1s are your time, protect your time. There will be exceptions, but don’t make them the norm.
Preparing for a 1-1 meeting
You should come to the meeting with a clear agenda and goals in mind. Be ready to engage in an open and honest conversation. Think about what you want to accomplish during the meeting, what progress you’ve made since the last meeting, and any issues or concerns you want to discuss.
Tips to make 1-1s even more effective
- Keep a shared document between you and your manager.
- Add the discussions topics beforehand so that your manager can do some pre-work if needed.
- During the 1-1, write down everything you discuss in the shared doc. This prevents situations where either of you may feel “we never discussed this”.
What to discuss during your 1-on-1s?
I recommend dividing your discussion points into different topics or themes, such as
- Career Development
- Feedback
- Team/Org related
- Challenges
- Projects and Prioritization
- Other
You should cover
- At least one of the topics every week
- Cover most of the topics every quarter.
It doesn’t need to be just about work. This is a great opportunity to get to know your manager as a person too. Understand their interest outside work, talk about their family (if they are comfortable talking about it) to build a rapport.
Topic/Theme details
Following are some key topics and questions to discuss with your managers in 1-1s. These are guidelines, use your own judgement and situation to tailor your conversations.
Career Development
- Ask about different growth opportunities in your company and how you can leverage them. Your manager has an huge role in your career progression and they may be privy to opportunities that are developing on the horizon and so can give early line of sight . If you are looking for a particular type of opportunity make the case for it early so they have you on top of mind when it does arise.
- If you are looking to get promoted, perform an exercise called “Gap Analysis”, where you list down what data points you need to get promoted, what data points you already have, and how to bridge the gap.
- If you want to develop a specific skillset, make a case for how it would support your development on the job or make things easier for them and the team. Then explore opportunities and resources that are available and the support they can provide to connect you with these.
Feedback
- Talking about feedback is important because it shows that you are interested in self improvement. Be open to receiving constructive feedback. You should seek frequent and actionable feedback if your manager is not proactively offering it.
- If your manager already gave you feedback, highlight how you are addressing it, preferably with specific examples or outcomes.
- Feedback works both ways. If you have some feedback for your manager, frame it appropriately and deliver it objectively. You don’t want to seem like you are criticizing an individual rather pointing out behaviors or ways of doing things that could be done differently. This could be a sensitive topic so tailor your communication style to the person and situation.
Team/Organization related
- If you have any challenges with a team member, process, prioritization etc, objectively lay out the impact and things you may have tried to overcome the challenges. This would position you better when asking for their guidance on how to move forward. Highlight items that may need their involvement and escalation and do this before it’s too late. Managers definitely appreciate a heads up way before you need to hit the panic button.
- If you have ideas or suggestions on new actions or changing any team processes like incoming bug review, on-call handling etc, 1-on-1 would be a good place to discuss that. You have the floor and (hopefully) your manager’s undivided attention to lay out the idea in detail so it does not get lost as a passing comment during team meetings.
- Understanding the “why” behind your work is important. If you are not clear on how your work plays a role in your organization’s plans, or if you don’t fully understand the org’s strategy and roadmap, you should clarify that with your manager.
- Contributing to your team’s roadmap is a good way to accelerate your career growth. If you are not sure, ask your manager what factors contribute to formulating the roadmaps and discuss how you can play a role in building it. For example, if the team is trying to achieve specific target metrics like revenue growth or latency reduction, delve into those so your efforts are aligned with the manager’s top priorities and shows your strategic thinking capabilities.
Challenges
- Good managers help unblock their team members.’s efforts. So if you are blocked by something or are struggling to choose between multiple options, seek your manager’s help. Make sure that you explain your thought process, actions taken and proposed course before asking for help. This shows that you are not simply asking them to do the thinking and decision making but have done your fair share of lifting before asking their opinion.
Projects and Prioritization
While all of the things we discussed so far are important, in reality you’ll probably spend more time discussing status update of your projects. This is fine, but try to not repeat what’s covered in stand ups or other meetings to save time.
- If you need additional time/resource, you can provide context and reasoning.
- It is also a good time to discuss tricky situations like new discoveries or changing requirements. It is important to bring these things up early to avoid surprises. It is better if your manager hears about these from you on time, than from some else.
- If you think priority of projects need to change or have questions about deadlines being hard or soft, those are also good topics to discuss.
Other (catch all)
- All discussions don’t have to revolve around work. If you need any support for a personal situation, 1-1s are ideal because you have privacy and the manager’s attention.
- Casual conversations – getting to know your manager can help build trust and good working relationship. Even managers are human and good human connections are always helpful.
- Last but not least, you don’t have to make it all about you. You can ask if there’s anything you could do to help your manager. Or if you know how you can help, offer that help. That will go a long way in your own growth!
Conclusion
As you can see, there are so many important things you can discuss in your 1-1s which make them an essential part of a professional relationship. They provide an opportunity for you to connect and build a good working relationship with your manager, stay on track with your work and have a roadmap for your career growth!