The actual structure of the 1x1 varies on the personality and the state of my relationship with the report. Some engineers are good at talking about how they feel and how things are going, some need some prompting. Sometimes there can be a lot of really uncomfortable silence, which is hard to get used to.
I’ve found that the one real rule is to not let one side or another talk 100% of the time. Plenty of people will use constant chatter as a way to avoid talking about important matters at hand. Sometimes this takes the form of random banter and general ADD things (guilty), but some people will fill the time with a status report to avoid talking about how they’re unhappy with how things are going. If one party tries to run their mouth the entire time, chances are somethings up.
This includes if you, the manager, is the one doing all the talking.
The actual structure of the 1x1 varies on the personality and the state of my relationship with the report. Some engineers are good at talking about how they feel and how things are going, some need some prompting. Sometimes there can be a lot of really uncomfortable silence, which is hard to get used to.
I’ve found that the one real rule is to not let one side or another talk 100% of the time. Plenty of people will use constant chatter as a way to avoid talking about important matters at hand. Sometimes this takes the form of random banter and general ADD things (guilty), but some people will fill the time with a status report to avoid talking about how they’re unhappy with how things are going. If one party tries to run their mouth the entire time, chances are somethings up.
This includes if you, the manager, is the one doing all the talking.