> Because they have so many 1:1 recurring meetings scheduled each week that they don’t have time …

> the key thing is that the direct goes first and gets to talk about _what they want to talk about_. How about if the direct has absolutely no interest in talking about anything because they are just trying to do their job, which is going fine? Because that's 99%, maybe 100% of these meetings I've ever had.

I worked at a place where the manager had, at the height of the organization's growth, five reports. He couldn't handle that many 1:1's so, at one point, he made them into a "group" 1:1. Of course, that made no sense. Eventually his manager reversed the decision. I'm honestly sure what he did all day, but he eventually got laid off. The best companies I worked for had no 1:1's. Eventually the company was acquired and the practice was "installed" by the acquirer.

> Dude, a a weekly 1:1 should be 30 minutes long. And managers should have at most 10 directs, so 5 hours total out of a 40 hour work week. Something has gone haywire and it's not the 1:1 thats the problem. I agree wholeheartedly, but this company culture had different ideas than you and I. Their idea of a 1:1 was that it was the formal and correct way to synchronize people. It wasn’t limited to managers and their reports. This shows up a lot in companies with matrix-style org charts. You end up with product managers and designers assigned to 3 different teams and setting up 1:1s with their managers and certain ICs to sync. Then their managers set up 1:1s with the managers of the other teams. Instead of being a tree it turns into a giant graph with edges everywhere. > And if your manager _wants_ to talk about their weekend, they can, but the recommendation is to always let the direct set…