A Redditor on ExperiencedDevs subreddit asked readers what they should be spending time talking to their manager about in one on ones.
Good news! I've been doing this for a little while now, so I have some thoughts to share.
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Hey folks, I am just headed home from the office. I'm going to go to Reddit on experienced devs for a topic. Uh I just got to punch in my GPS here. See how long we'll be stuck in traffic. There's supposed to be some like freak rainstorm. So it's going to take me an hour and 10 minutes to get home and leaving work early. I'm 40 minutes early. Um pretty nuts. Okay, so this topic from experienced devs, the title is, "What do you ask your manager in one-on- ons?" And um this person goes on to say they've been they're like 20 years into their career and uh and it seems like they've never had uh had 101's, which is uh I don't I don't really I don't think I have words. Uh I'm not whatever. Everyone has different career paths and stuff. I find that even like that is wild to say that statistically it like hasn't happened uh in 20 years.
Um they've even said that uh they manage teams and startups and stuff as well. So um I presume they have some idea because I would assume that in startups like if they were managing teams I'm assuming they would have done one-on ones. Maybe not though. Um, regardless, the sort of the point of their question that they kind of wrap it up with is like feel like their time is like wasted in one-on- ones. Um, and they are also saying that uh it feels like all that they're really using time for with their manager is discussing like parts of the system architecture that they don't really understand. So, basically, they get this time slot with their manager and they're just like, "Hey, like I don't know how this works. Like, walk me through it." So, I figured this would be an interesting question to go through. Um, spoiler alert, I don't think there's a right answer um to how to use your time effectively in one-on- ones with your manager.
There's not one right answer. So, we'll kind of talk about some different angles here. Um, and a friendly reminder to folks, if you want questions answered, please leave them below in the comments. I'm happy to try and answer or send a message to Dev Leader on social media. That's my main handle. It's also my main YouTube channel. You can also reach out on LinkedIn. Uh it's just Nick Cosantino. And if you send in questions on social media, uh I'll keep you anonymous so you can write whatever you'd like. And uh that way hopefully kind of takes the pressure off and you can add as many details as you need. I also just want to say too, if you find this helpful, try to remind you at the end, but um if you want to share a video link back to experienced devs on this thread, that would be super cool.
uh I don't want to do it because I don't want to get banned for self-promotion, but if you thought it was helpful, maybe you want to consider sharing it back. So, uh for context on this question, uh I wanted to just if you don't know who I am or like my background cuz you haven't watched other videos, I've been an engineering manager for just under 13 years now. Uh coming up on five years at Microsoft as a principal engineering manager. Prior to Microsoft, I worked at a company for eight years as a technical manager where I was writing the code alongside my team and like managing them. So, um I've been managing for a little while. Uh and awkwardly enough, like almost my entire career has been in management um just because of uh startup life. # startup life.
Um, so I got some thoughts on this and I wanted to start by saying like, and I kind of already hinted at this, like there's no one single right answer, but I also don't think that this person's answer is um is like wrong. Um, I know that they're kind of saying like I feel like I'm wasting my time. Like here's what I'm using the time for. I don't think that's a wrong answer. Um, it might not be the most optimal, but that might also depend on what your goals are, right? um would might depend on how long you've been at a company or or what how long you've been on a team or a project even. So um in this person's case, if they're using the time in their one-on- ones to talk to their manager about architecture and things like concepts they don't understand,
I actually think that that could be a great use of time depending on sort of the uh point in point in time that they're on with this team or project or whatever. And I say that because if you have a technical manager that understands the domain, the code base, whatever it happens to be, and you have questions, like why not seek clarity? Why not get that all sorted out? Um, I think you have a safe place to ask questions. You can go through that. I'm not saying it's optimal necessarily because I would say like, you know, are you waiting for a weekly one-on-one to be able to ask questions or perhaps maybe another thing to ask is like are you just asking these questions because you and it kind of sounds like this is the case like you don't know what else to talk about. Um so that might be true but I don't like again I don't think it's bad right.
um comp I know this is going to maybe sound ass backwards but uh to give you an example like I have an intern on my team right now and in our one-on- ones like he has a really good mentor so I know that he's getting support and I check in with him right but he likes using the one-on-one time to ask questions about even stuff that's outside of the scope of his project just so he can learn and I had team members over the past year that when they were new to the team and I was too they would ask me questions like that right like hey like just curious how this works or they're new to Microsoft hey just curious how this works um I am I feel totally fine answering questions and having like open candid conversations with folks um so if it's
about the system architecture like I said I was doing that with my my employee my my intern um I I mentioned in the video I recorded this morning that just this week I had uh not an architecture question but someone was asking just in general eneral about promotions like not even for themselves like it was rooted in that that's where it started but then the conversation was just like in general how do promotions work from like level to level and what does that look like so we use that time to talk about sort of processes in place and things like that uh what all that kind of stuff looks like so it was just a a like a Q&A kind of thing right so again I don't think that it's wrong if you want to use your time for that. I personally I have a very very technical manager.
He was an IC on the team before. He's been in the team for a long time. He's at partner level now as a as a group engineering manager. Uh he's seen some right? He's been in the space for a long time. Um which is great. Like what's funny is that like obviously he's been in his career much longer than I have, but when I think about what he's doing, and I know we're talking about different scales of things here, but based on how long he's been on this team and the position that he's in, it's very similar to where I would have been if I stayed at the company I was at, just in terms of like the the the project area, right? I would have been an IC and a manager for eight years. And then I in the video I recorded this morning, I was talking about how like there was no uh director positions above me because I was a technical manager.
So they didn't have that kind of role. But if that was open and if I stayed there would have been open um then I would be in sort of like a director role if not potentially beyond that. Wow. So I when I like as a manager I feel like very supported by him cuz he has very deep technical knowledge in the space. Uh some people really require that from their manager. I don't really require it from my manager, but I think it's an awesome benefit and that's something that I've tried to pride myself in is like making sure that I have uh technical understanding. Sorry, just kind of focus on getting on the highway here. Um, so when I started on the team, I was able to I spent a lot of my initial one-on- ones with him and he would make extra time for me to kind of go through system architecture, right?
We I I work on the routing plane for Office 365. And it's not like it's oh, you have one service that just does a couple things. No, it's like trillions of requests per day. The system's pretty complex. There's some really critical components. I'm responsible for different parts of that system. So, not just one part of the system, several different parts. Um, so I did need to spend a lot of time understanding the system as a whole and then diving deeper into those areas I own and then later catching up on the areas that are kind of peripheral. Sorry. that are kind of peripheral to those core parts that I own. That yawn was I felt it coming on. So yeah, like I use time that way and it felt very effective for me. But that was a point in time and that's kind of what I I wanted to kind of exit this part of the talk with.
It's like it was very helpful. I think it was time very well spent. But a year later, I'm not still doing that. So, that means things evolve over time, right? Um, one thing like to kind of switch gears here, one thing that I know a lot of people will talk about with respect to oneon ones is that like don't use 101's for status updates. Now, again, I don't think that there's no like perfect oneonone, right? And it's not going to be perfect for everyone all the time. Um, so I don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong with status updates and 101 ones. Again, is it the most effective thing? Not all the time, definitely not. Can it be very helpful? Sure, absolutely. Oh my god, this car so much beeping. So, what I always say is like if you're one ones always, regularly, just look like status updates.
So, you have a 30 minute meeting once a week. That's your one-on-one time. If your one-on-one is consistently, hey, here's like I pushed up code. I have this code review. Um, I'm fighting out changes. Here's how far they've gone. Um, and I have to go review these other five pull requests and I have one design dock. And then you're like, and that's my update. And then you're kind of waiting like, guess the oneonone's done. I feel like if you're using one-on ones like that, I know that sounds a little contrived, sorry. Um, I don't think that's effective. Now, the reason I don't think that's effective is that I would hope that there's other forums, other regular opportunities where status updates can be shared, whether that's, you know, a standup synchronously or asynchronously, just sharing updates in chat or some other way, right? like I I would hope that there's visibility into this kind of stuff through other forums.
Now, if there's not, maybe that's another conversation to have or like I'll give you an example. the project that I've been working on for a few months now. This is like it's very top of mind for me because it's a pretty critical project for our team, but also the people that are working on it like unfortunately like they they feel the pressure and it becomes top of mind for them. So, even for folks that don't regularly just use 101's for status updates, they've kind of shifted some of the conversations to be more status updates. And as this project has gone on, now that we're getting right towards the end of it, it's it's been interesting to see that the the 101 ones are kind of shifting back from, hey, here's a status update on this project for the things I'm responsible for to, hey, it's been a little while since we've done like a um a career conversation, right?
We haven't really talked about that like or we haven't done like a like a deeper dive into feedback and stuff like hey, like do you think we could do that? So that's starting to surface more, which is great, right? Like I I don't love that this project has been so heavy for for myself and the whole team that it's kind of deviated our our regular sort of flow of how these conversations go. Like I don't like that. Um but the reality is that's it's such a significant project that like I said, it's kind of taken that toll on on our interactions. So, um I I do think it's good that there's some folks kind of coming up for air and being like, "Hey, like I think this would be a helpful thing for us to go into." Um and I agree, right? Like we should be doing that.
And so we've started to kind of bring those back up. Um so I'm I'm very excited about that. I think that's uh a much more useful time than just status updates. Um, now with that said, because the priority for me and those team members has been this project, like it is top of mind. They want to make sure they're doing a good job. They know that uh I'm chasing people down for status updates cuz I have to communicate that out and and share the road map. we had to merge, so we had to go a little faster. Um, so like again, I don't I don't think that that's been wrong, right? I feel like it's weird to say like, oh, like that's that's a bad use of your oneonone. Like I just say Like I always start the conversations, what's top of mind for you this week, right?
If that's what's top of mind, let's start with that. Here's the difference, though. What I don't want to do is get into a pattern where that's all we're talking about. If my conversations with employees, if I have an employee that's only ever talking about status updates, I don't blame them, right? I'm not like, "Oh, well, clearly you suck at doing one-on- ons and you're you're bad at this." No, it's like, hey, like if that's top of mind for you, let's go through that. But hey, just a reminder, like we haven't talked about feedback, we haven't talked about career development. Let's carve out some time next time, right? I want you to think about that coming into this conversation next time. Give you some space for that. Give me some space for that. Personally, that's how I operate. If when I get if I get like caught off guard of like, hey, can I get some feedback?
I'm like, I haven't had time to like collect my thoughts. I try my best in the moment. So, I always try to give something on the spot, but I let them know I need to follow up and I will. It's just that I need to collect my thoughts. So, I think a better use of time, and I got to be careful about how I say this because this is also not what I think you should do every single time, but I think a better use of time is trying to focus on on career development. So, the reason I say not to do this every single time is if you're focused on career development and you're sort of narrowing in on like, hey, I want some feedback on how I'm doing. If you make that the focal point of the conversation every week, it's very difficult to have measurable measurable progress every single week, week over week.
This is where I feel like a lot of people get stuck with feedback that sucks ass. It's just like, "Hey, you're doing a great job." And then the next week it's like, I want feedback on how I'm doing. And it's like, you're doing a great job. And then it's like nothing's actionable. And it's almost like the interval for feedback can become too tight. So, I think a way that you can improve this is like, and I've talked about this before as well, is specific feedback. If you start asking for more targeted, more timely feedback, if you are to do that every week and you have something else to focus on in terms of feedback, in my opinion, it's a lot more likely you'll get number one, something that's feedback on the topic, and number two, something that's actually useful. Man, oh, my abs really hurt from the gym and that sneeze did not feel good.
Um, so and I gave examples of this in previous videos like saying like, "Hey, like I, I know just did this design dock. Do you have any feedback about uh if I structured um, you know, the different proposals effectively or any feedback on how I could make that more clear for next time?" um or I just did a presentation like do you have any feedback specifically on my delivery for that or uh did I communicate do you felt like I communicated my thoughts clear like it could be anything but going specific now I'm not saying that guarantees you get good answers I'm just I'm trying to suggest I think you get better results that Okay. And then if you are doing that more regularly because it's focus on potentially different things and I think there's more of an opportunity to get different feedback week over week as an example.
So feedback is one thing in terms of like we've talked about these things before uh and you're looking for feedback on your progression on those things. You can have conversations on career alignment, right? So you're operating at some level. I don't I have not met a person yet who did not care about promotions. Not a single person in my career. Now, that can look different for different people and the motivations can be different for different people, but every person I've ever had on my team has always at least been interested in what's next. How do I how do I make sure I'm getting better and working towards that? So, if you are carving out times periodically to kind of level set and review and talk about what's coming up and what you should focus on, I think that's a good thing to have one-on-one conversations about.
But again, if you do that every single week, it's like it's probably not going to change very much week over week. So, I kind of I'm presenting these ideas to you that in a way that's like maybe rotating through some different things is helpful. Maybe you have a week where you do a status update. That's cuz that's top of mind for you based on your projects. And you have another week where you're diving into some feedback on something. The next week is feedback on something else. And then it's once a month you're like, "Hey, I just want to do a a review on um I don't know, like career alignment." And maybe even once a month for that's too frequent. This could also depend heavily on your level. right? Or or what stage? Like to give you an example, if you're operating at some level and you know, you've been given some clear feedback.
Hey, we really want to see that you're you're getting some design documents nailed down. Like everything else is going super well. We just want to see some consistency on on designs or there's a project that uh you're wrapping up and like we just want to show that you have consistency with execution on things, whatever it happens to be, right? Maybe there's a focal point that you want to get feedback on as it relates to career progression. Maybe use that for one of your sessions. You could have a session that's on uh extra learning opportunities, right? Hey, I want to learn more about X some technology stack. Maybe there's a conference. Maybe whatever. Bring that kind of stuff up. Is there training budget? Cool.
Um, like there's I think the I think the reality is like there's a lot of different topics, but maybe it's a matter of like as individuals we don't know the right thing to bring up or maybe it's like you have ideas about what you want to bring up but you don't feel comfortable bringing them up. And I think honestly it's probably a mix. So hopefully like if I think if people have good managers, they will kind of get people to think about these things and get people to kind of they might spark the conversation, get you talking about those types of things. But if you don't have that, it's not the end of the world. It's just that you might have to do a little bit of extra work to try and spark that conversation. Now, as managers, like we need to make sure that we're giving space for people to talk in one-on ones, and this is something that I sometimes struggle with.
Um, so for example, if I'm in a one-on-one and someone's like, "Hey, can I get feedback on something?" Like what I shouldn't do is take the 30 minutes and just talk my face off. Or if someone's giving me a status update, I shouldn't just like get the update and just like respond to it for the rest of the 30 minutes and then consume their whole one-on-one. I think there's a lot more value. Personally, and I'm I'm kind of saying this to maybe get you thinking about what like as a manager what my perspective is. I think there's actually a lot more value in like having me shut up and listen more and ask more questions back to you. And the reason I say this is because other topics in 101's are or challenges that people are going through, right? That's a whole other class of thing.
No one ever talks about this. Like everyone's like, "Oh, how do I use a one-on-one like to to optimize for like my career stuff?" And it's like no one ever talks about the fact that like I spend a lot of time in one-on- ones like helping people with issues with teammates or other teams or personal issues, right? Um I do that too. Like I I make time and space for that because I've always said like my role as an engineering manager is to help enable my team do their best work possible and grow in their careers. So if people are having problems getting their work done because it's conflicts with other teammates or with other teams, let's talk about it, right? I'm I'm there to support you. So, you could bring up stuff like that in 101 ones. My nose is suddenly so plugged I can't breathe.
Why? And it made me forget my thought. That's how plugged my nose is. H where was my train of thought going? I was trying to say oh like kind of like sprinkling in different things. Yeah. Um so like rotating through different topics. Yeah. My I guess my train of thought was like this balance between like do we is it just that we don't know what to talk about or um it's not a safe place. So, as an engineering manager, there we go. I got to kickstart it. Uh, I was saying that I should shut up more and listen more. So, having people bring up challenges. It's very common, and I, again, I've made videos on this before, too, where we want to jump in. We want to jump in and solve people's problems, but that's not it's not the way to do it. uh it's not in my opinion and I think there's some research around this.
It's not the most effective way to to do it. The um sort of like the I don't know if you call it like shortsighted goal is just to get the question answered right solve the problem immediately feels good. There's progress but it's not like a long-term helpful thing. So, when I have people that come to me with challenges, I need to practice listening more. I need to practice asking questions back and not just dive into, oh, well, here's five solutions. It feels nice to be able to try and help someone that way, but it's like one of the benefits that we don't realize often is like you can almost like you can you can coach people by asking questions that might push them in a direction. And maybe not even push is too strong of a word. nudge guide, right?
Someone's like, "Hey, I'm having a problem with a colleague." And they give you a scenario and then you're like, "Oh, like, well, tell me more about how like those interactions have looked." You get a little bit more detail. You do this a couple of times and then you'll have someone being like, "So, I don't know what to do. I can't solve this. It's a problem. I don't know what to do." Okay. Well, what things have you considered so far? like what are the options that you've kind of gone through and then they might say I've tried this, I've tried that and then like maybe a couple more things are like this other thing or this other thing. Okay, cool. Okay, so you tried some things and you could go down a couple paths and say like tell me more about how that went or hey, like that sounds like an interesting idea.
What's uh what's your biggest uh barrier from from trying that out? Like why haven't you? Right? Like seems like you tried a couple things. Why not this one? And the act of like walking people through this kind of stuff. A lot of the time people are like I'm I'm always sitting there like these people are smarter than me and especially with their own problems. So if I just guide them a little bit, they arrive at their own conclusions. And not only is it their idea, it's also probably better than something I could propose. So I need to practice more uh doing that because I often do jump into solutions. So something to think about, right? Um I've noticed with different managers I've had um some managers do all the talking. I try not to do that, but I know in some cases I do. So it's something I'm working on.
And uh I don't exactly know how you leverage this information if you're not a manager. Maybe you are a manager and that's helpful to you. Um but something to think about, right? Maybe maybe the point here is like if you find that someone is always just directly giving you answers like here's how to solve the problem, here's how to solve it. Um maybe awareness of that's helpful because at some point you want to be able to you you want to walk through that process of solving the problem so you can build the confidence and the patterns to like know that you can if that makes sense. It's kind of like being taught how to problem solve through your own problems. So, I think there's lots of different things aside from status updates. This uh original post author was saying asking questions for architecture. I think that could be great.
Career conversations in terms of feedback, career conversations in terms of alignment for where you're currently at. You could be asking career conversations for later in your career. You could be asking about training resources, conferences. You could be asking about um business direction, right? Like that could be very interesting if you're trying to think about um sort of your involvement on the team over time, what's coming up, something to be motivated by, something you want clarity on from the business, right? Like ask those types of questions. There's so many things. And then the other one that I kind of hinted at towards the end was like, you know, do you have do you have current challenges that you need some support with? Like talk to your manager about that stuff so they can help you because they should be trying to help enable you do your best work possible.
So I think those are the ideas that come to mind. I hope that's helpful. Uh, if you thought it was helpful and you want to share it back to the thread, I said it at the beginning of the video. I don't remember the the title. Um, it's on experienced devs though, but the thread was about someone feeling that they're wasting their one-on- ons. So, um, just a reminder, if you watch my other videos, and I'm going to Reddit, it uh, it is tremendously helpful if you share any video of mine that you watch and you enjoy it. Um, you know, I I obviously appreciate the comments and stuff. Like, thank you so much for for sharing your thoughts back. I know some people have joined the live streams. Um, super cool to see people that, you know, they're watching the videos, they're leaving comments, and then they join the live stream and we get to chat back and forth.
I realize that I'm the only one with the microphone, so it's a little one-sided, but um, super cool to to have those conversations. The live streams are on my main YouTube channel every Monday at 7:00 p.m. Um, yeah, I appreciate that. What helps me the most is that like getting content shared. So, um, just a heads up, right? Like if it if it feels like it's low effort for you and you're like, I'm going to copy paste this link, put it onto Reddit, post it on social media. You don't have to have lots of followers or anything like that. just like getting other people to see it is tremendously helpful for me. Um, I try my I've said this in other videos. I try my best not to have like stupid clickbait titles and stupid thumbnails. Um, but that's like that's how you do YouTube. That's like the way it works and it really bothers me.
So, um, if other people help share stuff, then it then it helps a lot. So, I appreciate it a ton. I got a few minutes before I get home. Um, so I can either just stop the video or I can ramble a little bit. Rambling might be fun. So, looks like I beat the Maybe I shouldn't talk so soon, but I think I've beat the crazy storm we're supposed to be expecting. They're saying like inch in diameter hail. Uh it is blue skies and a little bit of overcast mixed in. So, so far so good. I have um messages coming in like crazy. Um I'm not going to read that. I have a couple couple work projects. One is uh we have a milestone tomorrow. Uh so I will probably just spend uh from once I pull into my driveway until I pass out tonight. Working on that.
And that's the one that got bumped out a month. Oh, buddy. That's not how that lane works. You shouldn't have done that. Um, they were in the right turn lane and just like cut in front of someone to go back. Silly, silly. Um, those damn BMW drivers. Yeah. So, I have a milestone tomorrow, but um, just a lot of work. But, uh, I don't know. It's uh, it's crazy. Like I know my team does not watch these videos. I don't think um no one's ever told me they do, but uh you know I I don't think I could tell them enough like how much uh their effort is valued. Like pretty pretty incredible stuff cuz I know that I'm stressed out trying to to work on this project. And the crappy thing about that is um you know I'm not perfect at at hiding that, right?
I do my best um because if I have to lead the project then um you know if if I start to kind of crumble under stress then that doesn't uh that doesn't bode well for like trying to lead things. So my my leadership style in general is that um I'm not going to like lie about things, right? Like if I'm genuinely stressed about something, I will I will say it, but I'm not um I'm not going to go out of my way to like be like, "Oh, I'm so stressed. I'm so stressed. I need to as much as possible keep cool, calm, and collected." And then if people are like talking to me about it in private and they're like, "Hey, how are you managing?" I'll let them know. Um, you know, I'm kind of struggling and, uh, trying to do my best. I know there's, you know, line line the finish line's in sight.
Um, because the most important thing for me is that like I need to make sure that my team is engaged to continue. Um, which is hard, right? like when you're when you're feeling beat up, like I know my team is also feeling beat up, right? I'm I'm well aware and I I need to make sure that they they know their work's valued. Um they need to know this isn't a forever kind of project. Um so yeah, it's hard. It's definitely hard, but um they've been kicking ass and uh it's super cool. I I I can't share any details about the project, but like uh it's so cool to see their work actually come together and make a difference.
and like we haven't finished the project like on paper it's not finished and um it's like months of work but we start to see the the impact of the project along the way and it's been like in the beginning like it was like okay like you know we're just busting ass trying to get stuff done and then still kind of progressing and we're like okay like we know we know there's still lots of work to do but we got got some momentum now. And then and then we start to see the impact actually taking effect. And it's like, oh, hell yeah. Like this is what it's all about, right? Like it's actually uh it's actually having the impact that we that we planned for. Um so that's been super cool. We're trying to do our best to share all those success stories so that people see like you don't have to wait months, months, months to see the the side effect of all this work.
You get to see like you get to see it before that and in like significant ways too. Um yeah, just it's just incredible. But obviously I'm being super vague and you're probably like, "What the hell are you talking about?" Um, I'm just trying to share that I'm very proud of them. Um, and they probably don't get told that enough. So, it's awesome. But I got uh I got another month of this project should be in a sit uh scenario situation. I don't know what the word I want is. It should be the case. There we go. so that as people are ramp or ramping down on their deliverables like they're getting their stuff landed completed that they can move on from the project. So in reality it like most people will be done very very soon. The the unfortunate part for me specifically is like I'm leading the the whole project.
So it gets pushed out a month. My involvement is pushed out a month. And I don't know if I've said this in other videos, but the disclaimer here is like we didn't need a month of uh we didn't need to move it a month. We uh we needed to shift a presentation date by a couple of days and the next available date was a month out. So had a had a pretty nasty side effect. Um probably good for most people on the team, especially knowing that like we're not just like adding more work. It's like, hey, you finish, you're done. Um, so I think that's good for most people, but side effect for me is I'm I get stuck on it. So that's not so great. So I planned for taking a week off basically um would have been starting tomorrow.
um or today even I guess original date was supposed to be yesterday and uh I was going to just take a week off from right after and then I got pushed a month and um I don't feel I don't feel good taking time off while that's happening and it's not I realize like sets a pretty bad example. But I know like there's uh spring break and stuff for for people they have like people especially with kids and stuff want to be home with their kids for spring break and that kind of thing. Um, so like if people had vacations and stuff, I'm like, "Yeah, take your vacation." Like, you know, we're not pulling in more work for you to do on this project, but it's a little bit different for me because I'm not going to be able to take a week off. I take any time off and not be worried about getting this stuff done.
So, um, doesn't really work for me, but I realize that's that's kind of a crappy example. So, I just have to defer my vacation a little bit. Just got to survive. That's what it's all about. Cool. All right. Thanks, folks. I appreciate you being here and uh I will see you next time. Take care.
Frequently Asked Questions
These Q&A summaries are AI-generated from the video transcript and may not reflect my exact wording. Watch the video for the full context.
- What are some effective topics to discuss during one-on-ones with my manager?
- I find that one-on-ones can be used for a variety of topics such as clarifying system architecture, discussing career development and feedback, exploring training opportunities, understanding business direction, and addressing current challenges. Rotating through these topics can make the meetings more productive and tailored to your needs over time.
- How should I handle one-on-ones that feel like just status updates?
- If your one-on-ones mostly consist of status updates, I think it's important to recognize that while status updates have their place, they shouldn't dominate every meeting. Ideally, status updates are shared through other forums like standups or chat. In one-on-ones, try to carve out time for deeper conversations like feedback or career discussions to make better use of the time.
- How can managers better support employees during one-on-ones when they bring up challenges?
- As a manager, I try to listen more and ask guiding questions rather than immediately offering solutions. This approach helps employees think through their problems and arrive at their own conclusions, which builds confidence and problem-solving skills. It's important to create space for these conversations so employees feel supported in overcoming obstacles.