There isn't a course or career training when it comes to the one to ones with a line-manager. Every manager conducts them in their own way, and what happens in them can sometimes feel secretive. So here's a look under the curtain on how to get more from these meetings.

When you realise that your manager is human these meetings become easier. Once you start giving more accurate descriptions on where you'd like to grow, what you want to work on and share what you've achieved the meeting becomes more productive.

Unfortunately these meetings rely on how well you know yourself. Since managers don't possess an innate ability to know what makes you happy or what your goals and aspirations are. Opening up can feel like a sign of weakness or make you feel more vulnerable, but the more you share the easier you make it for them to help you achieve your goals.

So what does a good one to one look like?¹

You set the agenda

We should approach setting the agenda pragmatically, if you are short on time come up with a few question that will lead to a productive outcome that you can ask in every catchup. The one question I typically ask is: How does the rest of the team feel?

This allows me to determine how confident other might be about a project. It helps me become aware of colleagues that are feeling stretched and could use my help or perhaps they wish me to help out in different ways. I've found this to be an effective way to find the gaps that need filling.

The areas you should be creating questions around should be on your general feeling about work, work-life balance, your growth, your interactions with others on your team and company and the progress you've made on tasks and goals. You don't need to fit this all into one catch up but theming your next catch up on one of these topics can help you prepare and get you started.

Achievements should be brought up. This is emphasised in a remote company, where your achievements can be missed if you're telling no one about them. A good manager will pass your achievements around the office, because typically their performance is tied to your own and you're trying to achieve as a team.

Sharing achievements builds trust, once those big ticket items land on the team's plate and they need someone to lead it. The rapport you've built up with your manager might just land you these challenges.

Coach your manager

If you layout sensitive scenarios for your manager this can help you broach a topic or help you handle those situations if you are ever in that position. It can also establish expectations and intent. As an example you could ask how they would let you know if you were underperforming or what an early sign might be.

Your manager is a sounding board. If you have someone in your team that isn't meeting expectations asking them for help is ok, but be sure to prepare how you'll handle the situation so it doesn't look like you're trying to avoid responsibility.

Align yourself with your manager's priorities. This can help you be more aligned with the business objectives and become more valuable to your manager. If you help them they'll probably want you to stick around and if their scope increases so might yours.

Give your managers work to do. If you find yourself working on something that is not challenging or can be tedious try giving it to your manager. If you pitch them something more important that you could be delivering they'll take the tedious blockers away from you.²

Sharpen your ideas

Only call the vote once you know you're going to win

There's an overhead to collaboration, and if you had to listen to every idea in the business you wouldn't have time to do any work. Use your manager to sharpen your ideas, convince them before convincing anyone else. If you slowly get people onto your side through catch ups when you present the idea to the business you'll already know how to answer the probing questions.

Use the time to develop your relationship and your ideas. Your manager has insight into who is working on what and they can direct you to the people that are excited to talk to you about your ideas and these people might know the challenges you are heading into.

Know Yourself

The classic "where do you want to be in 5 years" question isn't asked to determine if you will have a future at the company. The question is used to determine how well you know yourself. If you are managing someone that is unsure about what they enjoy or what makes them happy how are you going to put them on the work they are most passionate about.

It takes work to understand yourself so mentioning this to your manager can allow them to throw all sorts of tasks at you to see what you're best at. They can help you identify your weaknesses and strength. However they'll not do this unless you're comfortable with the challenge and the way to signal that you're comfortable is to ask.

Your manager will also provide you with work you enjoy and having a history of catch ups in which you've said "I really enjoyed working on x" can increase the chance you will work on those things.

Use your manager to polish your strengths and strengthen your weaknesses. Much of this comes with knowing yourself.

Discuss your weaknesses

The best way to deal with a weakness is by opening up to your manager. Then you can work to find situations that will allow you to improve and make mistakes. Don't expect them to provide you a magical solution to your weakness, some weaknesses take time to develop into a strength and skills take practice.

They can provide you some structure and ideas for actions but they can also provide you with work that allows you to stretch yourself. The best way to learn is to make note of mistakes so getting the opportunity to make more of them is worth while.

Not just your manager

When you're in a company you have access to people with all sorts of skills. People that know stuff that you don't, and you can utilise this for your own growth and understanding.

Try catch up with someone in sales and ask questions like, "What about sales would you like more software engineers to know?"

Or set one up with someone in product and ask how they ensure we are working on the best thing?

Finally

To summarise a lot of these meetings depend on what you want to get out of them and this article touches on some of the topics you might wish to dive into during these catch ups. Although they might be biased towards what I try to get out of them.

Perhaps managers could ask you to set up questions for the next meeting but they probably wish to avoid putting any unnecessary pressure on you as there can be personal reasons why someone doesn't wish to gun for more responsibility at this time.

The key is having more empathy with your manager, they probably have their own goals so use them as an example.

One of the major driving pillars of culture within an organisation is the way in which we deliver feedback. However; people are quite terrible at providing feedback and in young organisations this can turn into a form of ritualistic hazing.

If most drivers believe that they're better than the average driver, then we can be sure that people assume their feedback is better than the average feedback.

It is not only important that we work on how we provide feedback but equally important to work on how we receive it.

Ease-in

Positive things should be noticed, starting on a positive note clears the ground for a more constructive conversation than coming out the gate with criticism.

Compliment sandwiches don't work, if you're delivering critical feedback surrounding it with fluff is one way to fog up the message you're trying to get across.

If you're reviewing a piece of work, put the focus on yourself when commenting. "This paragraph confuses me because of x". Instead of "You've written a confusing paragraph". With this we can reinforce the separation of the person and the work, we are here to tackle the work not each other.

Provide Solutions

You should probably work out ways that can help someone improve before asking them to work at it. Discuss and provide these as action items, additionally be clear and ensuring they understand the feedback. You don't want them to spend time addressing the wrong problem.

The person receiving the feedback might already be aware that they're not great in a certain area, the only new information they're coming away with from this interaction is that you're now also aware they're not great.

They could feel frustrated because they've been making attempts at improving which hasn't seem to work. If you provide them potential actions or solutions you show them that they're not alone and you care about getting them through these challenges.

The opposite can also be true, telling someone they need to improve on something can feel like you're pushing their boat out without paddles and it can appear like you're trying to sabotage them, or just out to hurt their feelings.

Don't Provide Solutions

Sometimes people don't need you to provide solutions. Often they're just looking for reassurance. They could be trying to improve their confidence in a solution they've worked out.

Providing answers in these situations can make things tougher for the person trying to get feedback, instead we should ask questions. Questions provide you with further context of their issue and provides them with a different frame of reference. Simple questions can spark ideas in their mind and you offer a fresh perspective.

It's unlikely you're going to give them any better solution from the 10mins of context during the start of the conversation, considering they've been mulling over the issue for a much longer period and you might not be the first one they've come to for help.

Their solution might be good enough, throwing them a new solution might just lead them into decision paralysis.

Obviously if they ask "how would you do this" then give your answer.

Metaphors

If you're going to use a metaphor make sure they make sense.

Metaphors should follow the explanation and should be used for emphasis, they shouldn't replace the feedback.

Make it a Habit

Positive feedback with no buts, if you only compliment someone when you're trying to soften a blow eventually the other person is going to catch-on and the positive notes become flavour text.

Provide feedback when you have it. Gathering a list of things over a long period in order to unload on someone during a feedback session can make those sessions feel like a grilling. There's no warming up to those days and the receiver is probably not looking forward to it.¹ Alternatively if your goal is to create a toxic work environment this is how you can do it.

It's often not effective to address situations from a month ago and hitting them with accumulated criticism can make it tougher for them to know what the important thing is for them to focus on.

If you have to have feedback sessions, make sure that one session is focused on either them or you. Doing everything in the same session can cause it to spiral into tit-for-tat. Make sure feedback is provided one-to-one, getting feedback from two people at the same time feels like an ambush.²

Feedback shouldn't come as a surprise and should be provided on an ongoing basis.

Take Feedback Better

If we grow and learn from feedback, don't make it tougher for others to give it to you. Shutting yourself off from a tap of feedback is going to cause you to stagnate.

Sometimes feedback can be hard to give and you should acknowledge that when receiving it. We can all accumulate blind spots of behaviour, having these pointed out can feel embarrassing, but would you rather someone let you know about it or would you want to go the whole day not knowing you're making a bigger fool of yourself.

Avoid jumping to the defensive or starting an argument. Sometimes addressing the feedback is easier than the work of fighting it, so just do it, resolve the comment. If you're "being too combative" and arguing even about the smallest of things, eventually others might actively work to avoid your reviews and opinions.³

You can build social capital and appear more reliable just by agreeing. My sister does this to her own detriment. She'll re-watch an entire 8 hour series pretending she hasn't seen it already just to spend time with others. Being up for things and avoiding friction is bound to make it easier for others to get along with you.

Say no when it matters.

Blanket Feedback

Giving good valuable feedback is tough, if you're actively looking for feedback you're not helping yourself by asking for any feedback they might have. It can be more helpful to get specific; focus in on what you're aiming to achieve and improve on.

One of the easiest ways of gaining feedback is to ask others how they try improve certain areas of their work or their life, it doesn't have to always be about you and what you are doing or not doing.

Don't Forget Feedback

If you've found yourself in a situation where you've received critical feedback. (Like a PIP or you've said something you shouldn't have). Don't let others remind you of it.

You need to make it a point that you've not forgotten, it's even better if you put in active steps to improve or build a visual habit that can reassure others that they don't have to worry, you won't forget.

It's important to show that you take their advise seriously.

Be Genuine

Give feedback about things that really matter, smaller none impactful things should be ignored. Avoid nitpicking.

If you don't have feedback don't make it up, generic feedback and nitpicks aren't helpful. The person on the other end of the feedback might take every word you say as gospel⁴ and they'll put in an active effort to address your concerns.

Generic feedback can be confusing and some people will go to the earth's ends to address a nitpick when you never intended for them to put that amount of effort into the change.

Be genuine, get personable.