In the past I have had managers whose 1:1 meetings were worse than useless. But a couple managers I've had over my career ran excellent 1:1s. What makes a good 1:1?<p>The best one stayed in the room after and took notes, so it always seemed like he had a god-like big picture view. But I can't recall what else made it good, and what we covered.
My old manager used to spreadsheet my KPIs/goals and add notes to it for my grievances/questions. So, each time we'd score the KPIs to see my progress, and check up on the status of all the questions, clearing out any resolved ones.<p>That made for very clear and easy progress at each 1:1.<p>Otherwise, we'd always try to get out of the office for it. They'd buy me a coffee or similar. It was nice to change the setting, put me at ease, talk out of earshot, candidly, and feel valued.<p>I use all of that now myself with anyone I'm managing.
Fluid exchange? Yet another reason not to work for family.<p>How about actual information exchange; and if there's nothing new to update each other on, getting that established as efficiently as possible.<p>"I know you need to keep up with what im up to, Boss; im still heads down into the bowels of project X which i have been for 3 weeks and crawling out to give a progress report will string entrails across the workroom so don't make me do that, k?"