t’s important to listen to the whole engineering team at all levels to understand the problems your staff are facing. If you only listen to management or seniors then you only get part of the picture.
To be an effective manager, this starts with managing yourself effectively. This includes time management, planning and prioritising your tasks before you can even start delegating work to others
As a manager, you have two basic goals for a 1-1 with a colleague:
Start each one-on-one meeting with a personal check-in. Knowing the mental state of your team is valuable context for how to proceed in the rest of the meeting. These questions are important to ask every time, so you can understand how people are doing as far as work-life balance, well-being, and personal life. If something has come up for the individual, allow space to discuss it further. This is where flexibility is key – if you are too focused on getting through a rigid agenda then you might miss cues when your direct reports need support or guidance.
Variety is the spice of life. Each individual is different and what works for one person isn’t necessarily going to work for the next person. Try varying your approach to one-to-ones to keep discussion fresh. Here are some ideas to get you started.
If this is your first one to one with someone, this is a good place to start. Ask what your colleague wants/needs from a one-to-one. Tell them what you need from a one-to-one. Identify practical stuff like best time of day, day of week, duration etc. How will you know when they are mad about something? Do they prefer praise in public or private?
Ask them what they like to do outside of work, share what you like to do too. This will help you to both get to know each other, which is beneficial for relationship rapport building. It’s important to be accepting of individual preferences and differences. It’s also important to respect boundaries here if they don’t want to talk.
Think of a question in advance thats relevant to the context, and see where the conversation goes. It can be useful to share this question in advance sometimes. ‘How do you feel X project is going?’
This is where you ask your colleague whats going well for them at the moment, what are they finding challenging. Much like a team retrospective, but this should be focussed on them. You can help them to identify ways to overcome issues they are facing
Ask them how they feel they are progressing with their personal development goals? What would help them to make more progress?
Ask them ‘what is one thing that could be better about your job’? What would make the biggest difference. What could they do (or you) to help overcome it?
Ask them where they are at in the 3 core motivators: impact, autonomy, mastery. Use the questions below
Making an IMPACT as an engineer
Having AUTONOMY as an engineer
Opportunities for SKILL MASTERY as an engineer
Ask them if they have any feedback for you. ‘What could i do differently that would improve how we work together?’ Make sure you listen and discuss more to understand specific examples and the impact of this on them.
Instead of holding an ‘exit’ interview when someone has given notice to leave, hold a ‘retention’ interview with the aim to actively address any concerns that may progress to someone wanting to move on from a role. You can ask common exit interview questions, but framed around how to fix issues now, not after someone has already decided to leave
This is where you want to discuss how connected or aligned an individual feels to the organization. These are particularly important following an engagement survey, or any big change in your organization.
It’s important to understand how people feel they are progressing and where they are experiencing growth. This can relate to what they’re learning on the job and whether they are feeling a sense of achievement or momentum.
Interpersonal interactions are often a missed topic when it comes to one-on-ones, but they can have a huge impact on someone’s experience at work. Managers have a great opportunity to coach their team members when it comes to relationships at work. You can also take this opportunity to ask for feedback on you as a manager and how your relationship is tracking.
Do you feel like you get enough feedback on the work you deliver? What could i do to help improve this?
Often career conversations are reserved for once a year when a review of some sort is done, or completely ignored if a manager doesn’t feel confident in leading the conversation. Career aspirations and goals are important to discuss much more frequently – you can even check-in weekly (i.e. what progress have you made on your career goals this week?).
How happy are you with your skill development in the last
Ending your one-on-one meeting on an actionable question keeps the loop of feedback open.