[JohnMakin]

Why does this have to take place in a meeting? Why can't it be in a team slack? What value gain do you give talking an engineer through what's bothering them? Are they not capable of that independently of you?

A middleman's value is quite limited, of course as a middleman, you don't see it that way, but I find these meetings extraordinarily unproductive, even anti-productive, depending on how bad the "manager" is.

[KaiserPro]

> Why can't it be in a team slack?

Only a few people can adequately explain themselves through slack.

It doesn't help that a lot of managers are _bad_ managers, and don't/can't/don't know how to run a tight 1:1.

the point of the 1:1 is to provide a high bandwidth way of getting worries and steers from employees to management and direction back to employees. if there is nothing to talk about then cut the meeting short.

[dieselgate]

Usually people clam up and are not vocal during group meetings. I am not one of them but it's super common. 1-1s allow people to be more candid.

[JohnMakin]

I am not against 1 on 1's, but making that a regularly scheduled thing as if that adds value is kind of what I am arguing against. If people don't feel comfortable voicing something unless it is in private to their manager, that suggests to me two things - the manager/leadership is not fostering a collaborative environment, or the person needs to work on that (with the assistance/support of their manager), which I see as a manager's primary value gain, empowering their employees.

Managing via 1 on 1's sounds (to me) like a complete waste of everyone's time and a little bit toxic. It also can create an environment encouraging people to go around each other and backstab rather than collaborate. I have been in a lead position before, I'd be very concerned and probably have a series of chats with any dev that sat on something like a blocker until we spoke one on one, or only felt comfortable speaking one on one.

Some things do need to be spoken privately, and they should feel comfortable doing so/scheduling it, but a regularly scheduled thing as a way of managing, unless I am completely misunderstanding GP comment, is crazy to me. Of course I am speaking strictly manager/lead -> developer. A manager managing managers is probably quite a bit different and does require scheduling 1 on 1's regularly to align and adjust, but I wouldn't really know, because I've never been in that role.

[lovich]

You are working against human nature if you think most people are not going to feel more comfortable talking about private matters in a 1:1 vs a public environment.

You're also an asshole manager if you're giving any sort of negative feedback on a person in a public setting.

You could always just schedule a meeting when someone needs a course correction, but then your employees who are clever little humans, will quickly figure out that any ad hoc meeting is going to be a problem for them and then have anxiety about those, even if its going to be a positive meeting for once.

Have you never heard people joke that their boss asked them for a quick chat and they thought they were getting laid off?

[JohnMakin]

> You are working against human nature if you think most people are not going to feel more comfortable talking about private matters

This is reframing the discussion a little bit. I said up thread, certain things need to be discussed in private, but why would it be on a regular, frequent cadence?

As far as negative feedback - yes, but isn't that what quarterly/bi-yearly/yearly reviews are for? If someone requires negative feedback on like, a once a week cadence, I'd be very concerned that employee was a good fit or being managed wrong.

[habinero]

> As far as negative feedback - yes, but isn't that what quarterly/bi-yearly/yearly reviews are for?

Absolutely not, no. The opposite of that. You never want to hear negative feedback for the first time at an annual review.

You don't want to be giving negative feedback every week, sure, but you do want to give feedback as close to the behavior as possible. Otherwise, you're just letting someone fuck up for months when they could be learning

[lovich]

The longer the period in between reviews the larger the gap can become between the manager and employees perception of the employees performance.

Personally I don’t think once a week is absolutely necessary but I tailored it to the employees. I let them choose a cadence with a maximum of once a week and a minimum of once a month and had a mixture of choices amongst my team.

Some people also want to feel heard, but I had to balance that out with my other responsibilities and couldn’t guarantee I could drop everything to talk, so I carve out the time on my calendar and also made it clear that we could drop the meeting that week if both parties felt it was unnecessary

[solumos]

Yeah, if blockers are coming out in 1-on-1 meetings, that’s a really bad sign

[thih9]

For the company, yes. But not for the manager - who now has insanely actionable stuff.

[mystifyingpoi]

> Why does this have to take place in a meeting?

Conspiracy theory (which I believe in): because calls or in office meetings are not persistent and they are not recorded, but chat messages are persistent. Anyone can say they didn't say something, it gets harder in writing.

[habinero]

That's not a conspiracy theory, that's intended behavior.

You want your reports to feel safe to tell you things, you (or they) can always shift to written later.