Seeking Advice for Upcoming 1:1 with My Skip Level Manager

Question

Hi Taro Community,

I’m scheduled for a 1:1 meeting with my skip level manager, who was also my initial manager when I first joined the company two months ago. This will be our first one-on-one discussion since the management shift, and I want to ensure it’s as productive as possible.

Given the context that he was directly overseeing my work initially, what would be important topics to discuss in this meeting? Here are a few points I’m considering:

What else should I consider bringing up during this conversation? If you’ve had similar experiences, how did you navigate your 1:1s to maintain a supportive and constructive relationship with a skip level manager?

Thank you for your insights and advice!

Ryan Kuck · Accepted Answer

I would focus on the value you are creating for the team, for example:

Work shipped, or in progress about to ship
How you've helped make the onboarding process better as you've onboarded
A story about a senior engineer who you're helping or a junior you've helped

Also be prepared to see what is on his mind. Depending on if this is a regular cadence meeting or a one off, there may be a change that he is communicating to you. You should ideally be ready to "show off" but, there might end up not be a lot of time to go over what you've prepared.

More ideas for low key ways of adding value that you can talk about:

Generally talking about relationships you're building with anyone on your team or cross-role or cross-team
Giving real feedback about your thoughts on the mission of the team or the tech you're using, and some forward looking thoughts about how you're excited for it even if you haven't had time to make a huge splash yet
Product/infra suggestions where you want to pitch some ideas for opportunity currently missed

Whatever you decide to talk about make sure it resonates with you genuinely and then focus on listening to the feedback about what you're saying and having the conversation unfold from there.

Seeking Advice for Upcoming 1:1 with My Skip Level Manager

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