Make your 1x1s with your manager more effective

Ten steps to make your relationship with your manager better

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I’ve had a lot of managers. Some were user researchers, some had misconceptions of user research - some were good, and others were not. Others were absolutely terrible.

During different parts of my career, and with specific managers, I dreaded our 1x1s. There were times I had a whole myriad of questions or issues I was facing, but I didn’t want to go to the meeting. Sometimes I lied and told my manager that I didn’t have any topics so we could skip the week. Luckily (but also, unfortunately), the bad managers were more than willing to skip the week. This meant that I got to avoid the tear-my-hair-out thirty minutes, but also meant my head sunk further beneath the water. I had no guidance and no helpful feedback. I flailed and typically failed.

Then there were the okay managers. We had fine conversations, but our 1x1s and discussions felt like status updates. I was doing this and that project, all was good, I had a question about a request, oh and could I have a few days off next month? There was nothing about my career development. I received little guidance about my trajectory, path, or what I should focus on next to improve my general skills as a user researcher. It wasn’t a terrible relationship, but also wasn’t particularly helpful.

And then the few and far between, the great managers of the world. I’ve had only a few that fit into this category. During our 1x1s, every few weeks, we’d focus on career development. These managers would help guide me on areas to improve upon, they would help un-block me, brainstorm with me on how to overcome obstacles, and not just care about my career at the current organization, but after. These managers set me up for success and I attribute a great deal of my success to these wonderful people (and tell them so regularly).

Now, I’m going to put these managers into three buckets:

1. The heroes - those managers who help you beyond the day-to-day

2. The average manager - those who you can talk to and share with, but don’t go much into career development or general skill improvement

3. The meh-to-horrible manager - not helpful at all and makes you want to avoid them at all costs. Can have serious misunderstandings of what you do and why, but still have opinions on how you should do it.

I’m going to put the heroes aside because, to be honest, they are great at setting up 1x1s and helping with career development. So, let’s focus on how to improve 1x1s with the average and meh-to-horrible manager.

Ten steps to improve your 1x1s

Both of these managers might be average to horrible for a few different reasons:

1. They might not want to be a manager

2. They might be a new manager or not really know how to manage because no one taught them

3. They might not understand your role or responsibilities (very common with user researchers reporting to non-user research managers)

It is wonderful if you can get this information out of them because it can give you further clarity on how to work together. For instance, if they don’t want to be a manager or aren’t sure about how to be a manager, you know you will have to drive the relationship more. If they don’t understand your role, you will have to do more education. Unveiling this is the first step I take when I get an average manager.

Now, how do you improve your 1x1s with this manager?

The first piece of advice (which might not be what you want to hear) is that you need to own these meetings. This means you need to put in the effort to make these meetings meaningful - your growth and development is your responsibility and, for these managers, you need to be the one bringing it up. Here is how I take control and improve my 1x1s with this manager:

1. Create a space. I make a space for us to document our 1x1s. Whether that is a Miro board (you can check out this template), excel sheet, or google doc; it doesn’t matter. Whatever is easiest for you to fill out and make a habit out of.

2. Own the agenda. I ask my managers for a 50-minute weekly meeting. Sometimes I don’t get what I want so I squeeze the agenda to fit 30-minutes. But, either way, every week you should have an agenda you can fill out (via the space) so you don’t waste time thinking about what you want to discuss. My 50-minute agendas typically look like:

   • Progress & learnings (10 minutes): What progress have I made over the past week and what are some things I’ve learned?

   • Decisions (10 minutes): What decisions do I need to make in the next week or two?

   • Blockers (15 minutes): What blockers have come up for me and what do I need help with?

   • Upcoming work (2-5 minutes): What upcoming work or situations do I need my manager to be a part of to give me feedback?

   • Manager feedback - optional (2-5 minutes): What feedback do I have for my manager?

   • Admin - optional (2-5 minutes): Discussing or asking about things like vacation days, conferences, etc.

3. Bring solutions to blockers. I quickly learned that bringing problems to this (or any) kind of manager was useless. I either didn’t have time to talk about the problems or my manager just asked me more questions that left me without a solution. So, instead, I started bringing several ideas of how I’d solve the blockers and asking for feedback on them. This method was much more effective. We got through the blockers and I got the guidance I needed to make a final decision. I also always left time on blockers that I had absolutely no solution to and asked for feedback to get started on a solution.

4. Avoid lengthy feedback. When I want feedback, I don’t ask for it in my 1x1s. Instead, I ask my manager to attend a report presentation or a workshop I’m facilitating and ask for short, direct feedback right after. I ask my manager to take 2-3 minutes after my presentation to give me a few bullet points of what went well and what I need to improve. This way, the lengthy feedback doesn’t come a week (or two!) later and dominate our conversation.

5. Make the distinction between performance reviews & career development. A lot of these managers might want to save your career development talk for your yearly or, if you’re lucky, six month performance reviews. But, there is a clear (and often missed) difference between the two. Performance reviews look at past work. Yes, sometimes you touch upon the future with performance reviews, but usually that future talk is about promotions and raises (or lack thereof). Make sure you save time for career development outside of the performance review loop.

6. Explain your goals. If your manager doesn’t ask you where you want to go or what you want to accomplish in the next few years, then share this with them. Tell them what you want to grow into and what your long-term aspirations are (not the next three weeks, the next three years). Once you set this up, you can ask your manager how to begin working on these goals - can your manager put you in certain meetings or situations? Can you tackle a particular topic to improve those skills?

7. Give feedback to your manager. Your 1x1 is also about you giving feedback to your manager. In this feedback, I will tell them what I am lacking and what I need from them to fix that (remember, solutions). Additionally, if my manager has no idea what questions to ask me, I will tell them:

   • How productive and motivated I am feeling

   • How happy I am with my role/responsibilities and career development

8. Educate them. When a manager doesn’t understand what you do, and what you should be doing, you need to take the time to educate them. Tell them what user researchers do and what your role entails. Explain what your responsibilities are (and aren’t - don’t do wireframes unless you actually want to) and why these are your responsibilities. Talk through the ROI and value of user research.

9. Ask for a new manager. If you try this and nothing is working, ask for a new manager. Sometimes you would be surprised at this seemingly simple switch. Once, I was reporting to a UX person but it really wasn’t working. I asked to report to the VP of Product or the Head of Analytics. The switch happened and I reported to the Head of Analytics. Not only was this a great relationship but we paved the way for a amazing alliance between qualitative and quantitative data.

10. Ask for a mentor. If your manager doesn’t want to be a manager or simply doesn’t care, and you have no way to make a manager switch, ask them for a budget for a mentor. I’ve had many mentees stuck in this position, and my personalized mentorship program really helped their career development. If there is no budget, go out into the community to find people who you can talk to (ex: UXCoffeeHours).

These steps can help you get the most out of a less-than-ideal experience. It might even help your manager into the hero category (with time). However, these techniques may not work. There might be horrible managers out there that really do not care about your growth and career. If this is the case, and it is making your job unbearable - ask yourself this question:

“Am I still able to learn here?”

If the answer is “no,” it’s time to start interviewing!