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Improving the 1-on-1 meeting

5 min readJul 11, 2022

One on one meetings are a fairly big deal in a managerial context, but I think a lot of companies (and individual managers) whiff on the concept. We live in this age where we’re constantly told how fast everything is moving and how technology is changing everything. We deify the tech companies and their young billionaires, and we love new apps on our phones. I think a lot of that seeps into work and causes bad management.

See, technology can make work great and more effective and productive, yes. But if you jam a square peg (technology) into a round hole (how your employees are comfortable working), you just create chaos. We love us some collaboration tools, but … oftentimes they don’t work that well. Project management tools are all the rage … until they’re not. We’re going to see a high ROI on our recruiting from new technology … or we’re going to alienate the best candidates.

Technology works, and it’s great. I love me some Pokemon and I love me some Trello boards, you know? But you gotta do it right, and not everyone does it right.

And in this race to hope/think that technology will save all our problems, we ignore some good management ideas: like one on one meetings.

The dirty little secret about technology vs. one on one meetings

Sincere 1:1 meetings with staff are crucial. I once worked at an international financial firm where it was mandatory but in a very superficial vein. Needless to say, my direct manager was merely going through the motions when we'd meet. It was then a waste of time.