January 8, 2026
Read Time: ~6 minutes
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<aside> 📎 Tech has no shortage of meetings, but the 1:1 might be the last one where the truth still shows up. This piece is about protecting that space from sliding into performance theatre, noticing the subtle signs when trust is eroding, and creating enough room for the real stuff: fatigue, pride, hard conversations, and the context that makes great work possible. The 1:1 is the smallest unit of culture you still control. Treat it carefully, protect it, and it will quietly pay back in trust, and the kind of momentum you can’t roadmap.
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https://open.spotify.com/episode/7h5BAQfi1jaGdg6ItmcZTs?si=5e6ea24cd39e4256
Some weeks I think the 1:1 is the last honest meeting left in tech. As managers, If we’re not careful, everything else tends to evolve toward performance theatre. Not in your team, of course. Yours are flawless.
The 1:1 still has a pulse. It’s the one space where people can truly feel comfortable and say what they mean. If you’re lucky, truth leaks out about the product, the process, or how burned out someone feels after the third “quick” scope change forced yet another rewrite in as many weeks.
And sometimes it’s lighter. A small win. A demo that finally worked. A bit of positive feedback said out loud. People don’t just bring problems to 1:1s, they bring hope, pride, and that quiet sense of “we might actually pull this off.”
If there’s a message here, it isn’t "try my approach." It’s probably this. The 1:1 is the smallest unit of culture you still control. Treat it carefully, protect it, and it will quietly pay back in trust, and the kind of momentum you can’t roadmap.
When a 1:1 is healthy and working, it’s often not pretty. There’s awkward silence, half-finished thoughts, and that sigh before someone decides to say what they actually think. You learn that their recent reticence in meetings is actually an expression of concern for a peer or distraction from a health scare at home. You learn more about your team in those pauses than in any dashboard.