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by fhbdukfrh 2321 days ago
As a manager i would fight this approach because the 1:1's i schedule are for an exact flip of the relationship you describe. I certainly appreciate and encourage these feelings across all my teams, but unlike ICs it's my job and I'm given the time and resources to make these changes, it's not fair to expect someone to both execute well and put all the required effort into pushing for organizational improvement
2 comments
busterarm 2321 days ago
The only reason I'm in the organization is to push for organizational improvements. That's why they hired me over somebody else. That's the source of momentum in my career path and the best thing for me as well as the org.

If that isn't the case, then I'm a cog in a feature factory and that's not the job that I want to be in. I know that some companies/teams/managers approach work that way, but that's a very strong counter signal to me.

When I'm going on to my next job, do you think they want to hear what my responsibilities were or what I did at the company that made it succeed? This ties into why I think hiring is broken -- we hire for one set of skills and tend to expect delivery of another.

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grepfru_it 2321 days ago
>push for organizational improvements

doesn't pay the light bill

> a cog in a feature factory

pays the light bills.

YMMV

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busterarm 2321 days ago
Disagree. The answer is somewhere in the middle.

Every time some failing startup does a large layoff round, there's always questions of "why does X need Y many engineers?". Too many cogs in a broken organization is just burning dollars and electricity.

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grepfru_it 2321 days ago
do things manually for as long as possible until you need to automate it.
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busterarm 2321 days ago
At some point automating becomes a full-time job. And that's literally what I do.
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jevanish 2321 days ago
Your concern makes sense if it's all they do. Status updates and talking about your managers needs would be a crappy 1 on 1 if that was every time. It's supposed to be the employee's meeting.

However, if you mix up what you talk about a lot, then spending some of it on managing up would be pretty smart, just like you likely only talk about their long term career sometimes.

A lot of topics and ideas to discuss here https://getlighthouse.com/blog/one-on-one-meeting-questions-...

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