[nucleardog]

Completely agree. This is what I do with every team.

I explicitly tell everyone when I implement one on ones that this isn’t a status meeting, a performance review meeting, or anything else. This is 30 minutes once a month to ensure if all else fails there’s time set aside where they have my undivided attention to talk about whatever they want or need to. And I always make sure to make clear that the expectation isn’t that they will box this stuff into this 30 minutes once a month, that this is just ensuring a baseline and they’re welcome to book me any time for any reason to talk.

I only implement them once I’ve been in place long enough to build some sense of trust and psychological safety among the team. I have no interest in wasting time on meetings where I push the conversation along while they blow smoke up my ass.

The entire template for the meeting from my end is: “On a scale from 1-4 how are you doing (no half points)? Why?”. Everywhere else that meeting goes is conversational and driven by whatever they want to talk about. It’s _their_ time.

Even the most curmudgeonly people I’ve worked with who met the initial suggestion with complaints and eye rolls got on board very quickly.