How to one-on-one

It’s Thursday afternoon. Your direct report sits down and reads from a list: “Closed three bugs, reviewed two PRs, started the migration doc.” You nod. They nod. Thirty minutes pass without either of you saying anything that couldn’t have been a comment on an issue. Most 1 fail in one of three ways. The most common: spending your team’s only protected synchronous time on information that belongs in writing. The second: sugarcoating hard feedback until nobody walks away clear on what actually needs to change. The third is quieter—the 1 that keeps getting canceled because “something came up,” until the relationship slowly starves. What belongs in a 1# Great 1 focus on topics that only work synchronously. Five categories keep coming up: Career growth and development. Where do you want to be in a year? What skills do you want to develop? These conversations require back-and-forth exploration, picking up on what’s left unsaid, and nuanced guidance that doesn’t fit in an issue comment.…