đ·Deconstructing the 1:1 - How to have effective 1:1 meetings with your manager
Understand the importance of the relationship with your manager. Learn how to tailor your meeting depending on the role and personality of your manager.
Thereâs something most of us have in common: We all have a manager and 1:1 meetings(pronounced âone-on-oneâ or âone-to-oneâ).
We also can read, write, and talk, but that doesnât mean we are good communicators. The same happens with 1:1s.
Of all the people who can hate you in their hearts, your manager shouldnât be one of them. With others, you can minimize interactions. With your manager, you have to cultivate that relationship.
Takeaways from this article:
How to structure a 1:1 meeting with the PPP framework
How to tailor your 1:1 to each different context.
Why your manager is important
Your manager plays different roles. As your boss, you want to give visibility and create a positive impression. As your mentor, your manager can make you realize your strengths and new approaches to handling situations.
As a connector, your manager can find you a mentor or tell you the stories of the engineers who shaped the company. They can also provide you with the big-picture vision you donât see in your role.
As a decision-maker, you can influence decisions by influencing your manager. Leverage your manager to resolve conflicts with other teams. Iâd only add to be careful if the conflict is with a peer in your team. Use the Situation-Behavior-Impact framework to avoid seeming overly agitated.
To progress to the next level, writing a promo package is a shared effort between your manager and you. Ideally, they have less than 10 direct reports and worked with you for at least 1 year.
And this is not only about the result of a promotion, but about the growth process. A manager plays a catalyst role in your career. They speed the reaction between your talent and the company goals. They also minimize the friction between the two.
How to cultivate good communication
We all have different communication styles. Make an effort to understand what makes your manager grumpy, what kind of status reports are good, if they prefer better written or verbalâŠ
And make sure to communicate yours. A big thing is respecting your makerâs schedule: Iâm an early bird. I work better in the mornings. If you put me in a meeting at 9.30 am, I wonât perform my best work that day. I also like respecting the lunch break to avoid rushing my lunch or missing the chance to play a ping pong match in the office đ.
Adopt the principle of no surprises by setting the right expectations. When onboarding, ask for a 30-60-90 day plan of expectations. Once onboarded, ask and log the expectations for the next review cycle. Even better, bring your understanding of the expectations and find where your understanding was wrong.
This is all about planning right to left (setting expectations and working backward) instead of left to right (you do some action and hope to get some positive result). Creating this working backward plan for your career and asking for feedback regularly is constantly adjusting your direction to avoid detours.
Another common situation is thinking your manager is not providing you with opportunities. Thatâs because they donât know your goals (and probably neither do you).
Your early career goals will be technical. Your manager may want to offload a senior engineer and influence them to delegate and sponsor you with a project. Your late career will be about working with people. The opportunity may be putting you to lead an effort that spans multiple teams.