<story><title>Ask HN: What do you do in your 1-on-1s with your direct reports?</title><text>Specifically in the context of engineering management, how frequently do you have 1-on-1s with your direct reports, how do you structure them, and what have you found to work and not work well?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>martininmelb</author><text>This seems to work for me:&lt;p&gt;1. This is your time to talk about whatever is on your mind.  If you want to talk about the footy over the weekend, that&amp;#x27;s fine.  If you want to talk about work or issues at home or career progression, that&amp;#x27;s fine.&lt;p&gt;2. Sometimes there is not much to talk about - and that&amp;#x27;s fine too.  If they do not have much to say on a particular day and I don&amp;#x27;t have much to say, it&amp;#x27;s a short meeting.&lt;p&gt;3. As said previously, try never to reschedule and never, never forget.&lt;p&gt;4. It&amp;#x27;s a really good time as a manager to practice listening.  For that reason, I never have an agenda (i.e. things I want to say) at these meetings.  Also, I try to contain the impulse to  give advice unless they specifically ask for it.&lt;p&gt;5. I make it quite clear that as far as legally possible, I will maintain confidentiality.  The only time that something may be relayed upward is if there is requirement for me to do so (e.g. an employee reporting harassment).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wpietri</author><text>Great list. I agree listening is primary, but I think a manager should work to make sure particular topics get discussed. For some people it&amp;#x27;s enough just to say &amp;quot;what&amp;#x27;s on your mind?&amp;quot; But for others I find I need to be more specific.&lt;p&gt;One thing I make sure we don&amp;#x27;t talk about is status reports. A lot of people have been trained to do that in a 1:1 and I think that&amp;#x27;s a waste of time. As a manager it&amp;#x27;s my job to know what&amp;#x27;s going on; if I don&amp;#x27;t I should adjust systems so that I do. So that &lt;i&gt;everybody&lt;/i&gt; does.&lt;p&gt;But the things I really want to dig in on are deeper issues. It&amp;#x27;s my job to make sure my people are happy at the company and are growing in their careers. So if they don&amp;#x27;t bring it up on their own I&amp;#x27;ll ask questions about emotional state and emotional reactions to situations. E.g., &amp;quot;How did you feel about that?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Are you feeling sufficiently challenged?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;What have you learned this week?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I also think it&amp;#x27;s valuable to have a list of ongoing themes and to keep returning to them. Otherwise it&amp;#x27;s easy for an issue to drop into the background. E.g., somebody has an issue with a coworker, or is feeling bored, or thinks we have too many meetings, or thinks we don&amp;#x27;t take tech debt seriously enough. People mentioning that even once is a gift: I can&amp;#x27;t fix systemic problems if I don&amp;#x27;t know about them. And even if the system is fine, I don&amp;#x27;t want my people just putting up with their jobs. I want them happy.&lt;p&gt;So it is definitely their time. But I&amp;#x27;m also the person with more experience both in the industry and specifically doing 1:1 meetings. I&amp;#x27;m also the person with more power to fix many problems. So if they have anything they want to talk about, I&amp;#x27;ll honor that for sure. But if they don&amp;#x27;t, I think it&amp;#x27;s my job to ask good questions.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What do you do in your 1-on-1s with your direct reports?</title><text>Specifically in the context of engineering management, how frequently do you have 1-on-1s with your direct reports, how do you structure them, and what have you found to work and not work well?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>martininmelb</author><text>This seems to work for me:&lt;p&gt;1. This is your time to talk about whatever is on your mind.  If you want to talk about the footy over the weekend, that&amp;#x27;s fine.  If you want to talk about work or issues at home or career progression, that&amp;#x27;s fine.&lt;p&gt;2. Sometimes there is not much to talk about - and that&amp;#x27;s fine too.  If they do not have much to say on a particular day and I don&amp;#x27;t have much to say, it&amp;#x27;s a short meeting.&lt;p&gt;3. As said previously, try never to reschedule and never, never forget.&lt;p&gt;4. It&amp;#x27;s a really good time as a manager to practice listening.  For that reason, I never have an agenda (i.e. things I want to say) at these meetings.  Also, I try to contain the impulse to  give advice unless they specifically ask for it.&lt;p&gt;5. I make it quite clear that as far as legally possible, I will maintain confidentiality.  The only time that something may be relayed upward is if there is requirement for me to do so (e.g. an employee reporting harassment).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>larrydag</author><text>I follow this too.  I try to meet 1:1 biweekly with my direct reports.  Here are some ideas on management that I believe will make this effective&lt;p&gt;1.  Try to meet with every one of you direct reports consistently.&lt;p&gt;2.  I believe you should have less than 8 direct reports. The number is not important.  Its that you have the time to meet with each one on a consistent basis.&lt;p&gt;3.  If you have a large team then you need to delegate  managerial duties.  Work with HR if you can&amp;#x27;t do it directly.  At least set up team leads.</text></comment>