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What is a one-on-one meeting?
In most general terms, a one-on-one is a meeting between two people. In the corporate world, it is associated with a discussion where two people exchange candid feedback, share concerns and discuss how they can be more helpful to each other. It is also used to describe a meeting between a manager and one of his or her employees. The latter is the case I am going to discuss.
The one-on-one I am going to discuss is a meeting between a software engineer and his or her boss.
Early in my career, I had bosses who didn’t schedule regular one-on-one meetings. The relationship I had with those managers was made of rare interactions. I didn’t know them, and they didn’t know me. They only knew me from the work I did and the occasional casual conversation. At the time I didn’t think of asking for more regular interactions, mostly because I didn’t believe that it was something I had to initiate. Talking to my boss in a closed room setting was a rare occurrence, often reserved for specific brainstormings, promotions, or salary raises. ...