After I published my article on How To Run Effective 1:1 Meetings, I received multiple messages asking interesting questions or directly disagreeing, with the 1:1s framework I’ve proposed.

No wonder! 1:1 meetings are among the most popular, time-consuming and opinionated managerial processes. It’s hardly a surprise that people hold strong and sometimes emotional opinions about those. To heat the discussion even more, recently there has been a trend in social media suggesting ditching 1:1 meetings altogether.

After all, if the CEO of the most valuable company on earth does not do 1:1 meetings, we should not do those as well. Surely it’s the shortest path to being as rich and successful as him, right?

Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for anything and 1:1s are no exception. So I’ve decided to summarise the most frequent and interesting questions in this short follow-up article.

FAQ on how to run 1:1 meetings

Let’s start with the most important question.

Nvidia CEO does not schedule 1:1s, so why should I?

Well, because you are not Nvidia CEO, my friend.

I’m not in a position to judge Nvidia CEO. As a matter of fact, I’m not in a position to judge any CEO. There is however one significant difference between me (and you?) and Jensen Huang or Jeff Bezos. And I’m not talking about having a private yacht.

Although this as well.

Those guys work with extremely experienced and senior people. Their direct reports don’t need regular coaching, personal growth support or help with removing the blockers. They are far past that period of their career. They are the ones coaching others.

So yes, if you happen to be the CEO of a multi-million corporation, reading my blog (hi! 👋), you probably don’t need to run regular 1:1 meetings with your reports. More time for yachting!

But if you are not (yet) a CEO, continue reading.

Do I have to run 1:1 meetings every week? That’s a lot of work!

As a principle, I suggest you schedule weekly 1:1s with your teams. There are however some situations when bi-weekly should be ok. If you are managing a high-seniority team and you have worked together for a long time already, have a good relationship and communicate well, it’s ok to do bi-weekly meetings.

It also depends on the setup of your team. If you work on-site, in the same office, you probably have many small daily interactions. But if you work remotely, or distributed across multiple offices, those interactions are heavily limited. Having a frequent, regular time to catch up is essential. Hence, if you work remotely, it’s better to stick to the weekly schedule.

Finally, if you are a new manager (either new to the role or new to the team) your main focus should be getting as much up-to-date feedback about your work and the team as possible. 1:1s is your most effective tool to do that so you should run those weekly and focus a lot on giving and receiving feedback.

Summing up. I recommend a weekly schedule unless you have a good reason to do it bi-weekly. I would strongly advise against running it even less frequently. A less frequent schedule will kill the momentum of those meetings and will make the topics discussed there outdated and less relevant.

I have many reports. Do I have to meet with all of them?

I’m willing to die on the hill that if you have so many direct reports that you are not able to meet with them weekly, your team is too big. But I also acknowledge that often this is something that you cannot immediately change. If you have so many reports, just switch to a bi-weekly schedule and consider a better team setup in the long run.

You can also try a hybrid approach and meet with more experienced people bi-weekly while spending more time with less experienced reports, who need more guidance.

How do I find topics to talk about in those meetings?

You just ask :) The key aspect of good 1:1 meetings is that you are not the main person contributing topics to the agenda. Ask your reports to do that. They may struggle at the beginning, so help them and propose some topics yourself as an example.

Some example topics to discuss on 1:1s

1. Their daily work and projects they are working on
2. How do they spend their day, do they have enough time for deep focus, are they blocked or slowed down by anything?
3. Their satisfaction with the work they are doing and how it aligns with their growth and personal development
4. Their understanding and contribution to the team and company goals
5. Their personal development goals, progress on those and what opportunities they have in the team and the company
6. Their wellbeing, feelings about working in the team and the company

Start with those and keep encouraging your reports to bring theirs.

How can I make 1:1 meetings more engaging?

There is no single solution to the lack of engagement in the meetings. But some things help.

1. Ask for contributions to the agenda and make sure that you indeed discuss topics that were brought by your reports. Be insistent on that point and help them choose the topics if needed.
2. Make sure that you follow up on any action points agreed during the meeting. If they see that bringing topics to you makes sense, they will be more engaged.
3. Start with a small talk, and create some personal connection. Listen actively and try to build a safe space where opinions can be shared without judgment.
4. Focus on them and their work. Share feedback, celebrate their achievements
5. Ask for feedback and iterate. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for 1:1 meetings, work with your peers to find a formula that fits them best If everything fails, a lack of engagement may be caused by more personal topics, like a lack of trust. Pay attention to those signs as they may surface some deeper problems in the team.

Where should I keep the meeting notes?

Don’t overcomplicate this. Create a shared document for each of your direct reports and link it to the meeting invitation. Update it before the meeting with topics to discuss, notes and action points agreed in the meeting.

You can also keep your private notes separately, in a dedicated doc or application, if you want to track the information privately, for your own needs.

See the forest through the trees

Daily churn makes it easy to lose focus on what matters.

The framework, the process, you use to run 1:1 meetings is just a tool to know your people and help them grow. Don’t focus too much on the tool itself. Focus on people and keep experimenting and adjusting until you see it works well.

And if you have some more questions or doubts about 1:1 meetings. Let me know!

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