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Comment by helij | Hacker News Reader

As a manager as well as a human being I am interested in my co-workers and how they feel, their family, etc. so I don't really 'get' your negativity. Can you point some of the bullcrap on the list. There might be a way to rephrase some of the questions to make them not bullcrap.

I think 1on1 is great. I was at the receiving end and now at giving end. When I did 1on1 with my manager I always felt good afterwards but I was always 100% honest in my answers. The issues I see are if one of the two is not completely honest and that is a completely different issue not solvable by 1on1 but needs to be addressed within orgazination.

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The very idea that there are two ends is your fallacy bro you are already putting yourself in the magnanimous role of giving something

A 1:1 is inherently a meeting of minds where there is no power imbalance and genuine trust can develop

The way you make it sound is like the CIA giving mandatory lie detector tests where one person is strapped to a chair and the other is taking notes

I'm calling false corporate bullshit as a human being

There is always a power imbalance between a subordinate and a manager. There is no “genuine trust” with a manager. If your manager was told that their were imminent layoffs and they were told not to tell you, do you think they would?

Would you tell your manager that you are hoping to learn all you can to get a better paying job in a year?

Of course there is no trust, and this lack of trust is pouring from all these questions. Personally I encourage the people who report to me to always come to me with any issues they may have and never wait until a 1 on 1.

You can’t come to your manager at anytime when you have an issue. It’s not always because of lack of trust. They are busy managing. I sometimes need to schedule a meeting with my manager to go over a technical proposal and his schedule is busy all day with meetings. That’s not meant to be negative.

Also, I’m at a level now that I need to come to a manager with both problems and proposed solutions.

Of course, but in my case it's as simple as sending an e-mail "Could we talk at your earliest convenience?" Unless of course the issue is not really important - in that case it can wait for 1:1.

You have to distinguish between yourself as Mr. Nice Guy Manager™ and management culture as a whole where incentives are so ass backwards that people are cutting off their noses to spite their face and kowtowing to a bunch of geriatric co conspirators rather than advocating for the needs of the client relationship and their own so called subordinates this kind of behaviour is nothing more than a pyramid scheme where the prize is coronavirus for everyone

Actually this whole 1:1 thing is nothing but a prisoners dilemma played out over and over in various ways by people who claim to be experts in game theory but fail to recognize the game is playing them

Or if you've ever read about the cooperation dilemma which is a variation of this conundrum

Yes! There's an imbalance no call it what it is 1 > 1

As a manager as well as a human being, you shouldn't have to ask those questions during a 1:1, the well being of your team should be something you're observing from the inside.

And, more importantly, you should not delegate the responsibility of flagging it when something is wrong. You should know without asking.

No as an employee the last thing I want is to constantly having to read between the lines. Just be up front and tell me about issues.

Early on as a manager I made the mistake of assuming I knew what was going on in someone’s head just by working closely with them. I was wrong. You can’t even just directly ask because of the complicated dynamics. The best way I have found is frequent conversations that challenge people to dig down into their values and perspectives. Lists like this one are a good starting point, but as others have said genuine empathy is required.

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