The Most Expensive Meeting You're Running Badly

The 1:1 is the most expensive meeting most engineering managers run badly.

Not because they skip it, but because they run it as a status update with eye contact.

Five things I see consistently:

They ask "how is the work going?" instead of "what is slowing you down that I have not noticed yet?" One question gets a progress report. The other surfaces the thing the engineer has been sitting on for three weeks.

They talk more than they listen. I have seen managers spend 40 minutes of a 45-minute 1:1 sharing context, updates, and opinions. The engineer leaves having said nothing that mattered.

They optimise for comfort. A 1:1 where nothing uncomfortable is ever said is not a safe relationship. It is a managed one. Engineers do not confide in managers they have to perform wellness for.

They run it the same way with every engineer. A new grad and a principal engineer have entirely different 1:1 needs. Same format for both means you are serving neither.

They treat it as recurring, not cumulative. Each session floats in isolation, with no thread of continuity and no memory of what was said three months ago.

Most engineers do not leave because of workload or salary alone. They leave because nobody asked the right question at the right moment. By the time the resignation letter arrived, there had been 24 1:1s where the moment existed and passed.

That is a listening problem.