Hello Career Growth Guide,
Each week, Each week, we take one small moment from a normal workweek and pull it apart. We look at what happened and how you can handle it better next Monday. These issues are written for people in their first few years at work, and each one is short enough to read between tasks. Small fixes like these add up, and over a career they can take you a long, long way.
Today, we talk about the thirty minutes a week you spend alone with your manager. You'll end up with three bullets to send the night before and one question to close on.
The Multiplication Farah did on a Sunday night
Twenty-six hours.
That is thirty minutes a week with your manager, across a working year. More one-to-one time than you get with almost anyone at work.
Farah did the multiplication on a Sunday night and felt slightly sick. She had been in her role fourteen months.
She could not name a single thing that had changed because of those meetings.
What twenty-six hours is currently buying
Farah's 1:1s followed the same shape every week. She listed what she had done, and her manager nodded.
They talked about the weather for four minutes and finished early.
Everyone left satisfied. Nothing happened.
Mark Rabkin, who ran engineering teams at Facebook, wrote the sharpest line about this. If the conversation is not at least a bit awkward, you are not talking about the real stuff.
He has a rule that follows from it. If a topic could safely be said out loud at the desks, it does not belong in a 1:1.
Status updates pass that test. So do compliments and small logistics. All of them can go in a message.
Which leaves the actual purpose of the meeting. Your manager cannot help you with anything you never put on the table.
Farah changed three things. It took her about ten minutes a week to prepare.
The three-item agenda
Send three items, in this order, every single week.
- One win, stated as a result
- One thing you are stuck on
- One decision you need from her
That is the whole agenda. Three items keep it short enough that you will actually do it.
The order matters. The win goes first because it is the easiest to skip and the most likely to matter in six months.
State it as a result, not a task. "Finished the onboarding audit" is a task. "Finished the audit, found three steps we can drop, and setup gets about a day faster" is a result.
The stuck item goes second because the win has earned you the credit to raise it. The decision goes last because it would otherwise sit in your inbox another week.
Resist the urge to add a fourth item. Three is short enough that you will still do it in a bad week.
The one question to ask every time
At the end, ask this:
"What's one thing I could be doing differently?"
Same words, every week. Not "any feedback for me," which invites "no, you're doing great."
The specificity is doing the work. One thing is answerable. Feedback in general is not.
The first three times you ask, you will probably get nothing useful. That is normal, and it is not a reason to stop.
Around week four your manager starts arriving with an answer, because she knows the question is coming. That is the point of using the same words.
Write her answer down straight after, before you rationalise it away. Most useful feedback sounds unfair for about a day.
Farah's first real answer was that she over-explained in meetings. It stung for a day. She has been shorter ever since, and two people have mentioned it.
Send the agenda the night before
This is the smallest change, and it does the most work.
Three bullets in a message, sent Sunday evening or the morning of. Nothing formal.
Your manager arrives having thought about your stuck item. You get an answer, and she is not thinking about it live for eleven minutes.
It also means the agenda is yours. When you drive it, the record of your work comes from you, not from fragments she assembles later.
Farah writes hers on the train. It takes four minutes now.
The awkward test
Before you send the agenda, read it and ask one question. Could I say all of this at my desk, with people listening?
If yes, item two is not honest enough yet.
The stuck item is where the real value hides. Being unsure about a growth area, feeling bored, not understanding why a decision went the way it did. Those are the things a 1:1 is actually for.
You do not have to be dramatic about it. Try this one. "I'm not sure I'm learning much on this project."
That is a complete sentence, and it does the job on its own.
Say it once. It is much easier the second time.
You are not asking her to fix your feelings. You are telling her something she cannot see from where she sits.
What to do this week
Do not overhaul anything. Send three bullets before your next 1:1.
Write the win as a result. Pick one thing you are actually stuck on, not the safest thing on your list.
Then ask the question at the end, even if the meeting has gone badly and you would rather leave.
Do that four weeks running before you judge whether it works. One week proves nothing, because your manager will still be responding to the old pattern.
Keep the answers somewhere. By week six you will have a short list of what is holding you back, in your manager's own words.
That list is worth more than most training courses. It is also specific to you, which no course can be.
Keep it in the same note as your agenda drafts. Re-read it before your next performance review.
Twenty-six hours
Farah's meetings are still thirty minutes. They still finish early some weeks.
The difference is that she can name four things that changed because of them.
A project she got moved onto. A habit she dropped. Two decisions that would otherwise still be pending.
The time was always there. She was just handing it back unused.
See you next week!
