Nishant M Gandhi

Trying to Understand World by Reading Listening & Thinking.

1x1 my thoughts

How do you deal with 1-1 meetings that struggle to go past 10 min?

I look at these weekly 1x1s as an opportunity for us to help them grow. There are multiple dimensions that we can think about for this 1x1s.

  • First is the summary of their weekly work. This is important for creating performance history and can be used to advocate for their comp raise or title change.
  • Second is the opportunity to build trust. Without trust they will not be vulnerable and open us their problems. Every 1x1s will be just happy faces and all good without trust. Next thing you know is they are leaving company and you have no clue why.
  • Third is to learn about their interest and their career goals. It could be about extending competency (i.e. Backend to full-stack) or towards moving up the ladder (i.e individual contributor to team lead). This will help us to put them on right path or create opportunity for them to grow. If they feel stuck and don’t see personal growth, they will leave eventually. You can also talk about their progress week by week toward those goals.