> I don't know if anyone's ever told you that half the time this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy.'
What articles like these fail to realize or fail to point to is that a lot of your work outcomes come down to whether your manager likes you, their manager likes you and your coworkers like you. This isn't universal of course. There are some people who are disliked but clearly brilliant enough for it to matter. These people are the exception not th enorm.
At Google, there was a meme in performance review that goes something like:
> This project would've failed without this person. It failed anyway but it definitely would've without them.
You can take the same set of circumstances and interpret them differently based on who you like and who you don't. Project fails? Someone you like did what they could for the team. Someone you don't didn't contribute enough. Project succeeds? Person you like was a key reason why. Person you don't wasn't.
So when it comes to 1:1s, if your manager likes you you're more likely to be someone they advocate for, extol the virtues of your accomplishments and so on. If your manager is liked the more likely their opinions are to carry weight.
So how to get the most value of your 1:1s? Figure out if your manager likes you and figure out if their managers likes them.
You're assuming this is unrelated to performance. Managers like people who do good work and get shit done without a lot of handholding. It really helps if you're respectful and not irritating. What you describe is totally rational and fair as long as the manager is regularly updating their opinions.
> I don't know if anyone's ever told you that half the time this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy.'
What articles like these fail to realize or fail to point to is that a lot of your work outcomes come down to whether your manager likes you, their manager likes you and your coworkers like you. This isn't universal of course. There are some people who are disliked but clearly brilliant enough for it to matter. These people are the exception not th enorm.
At Google, there was a meme in performance review that goes something like:
> This project would've failed without this person. It failed anyway but it definitely would've without them.
You can take the same set of circumstances and interpret them differently based on who you like and who you don't. Project fails? Someone you like did what they could for the team. Someone you don't didn't contribute enough. Project succeeds? Person you like was a key reason why. Person you don't wasn't.
So when it comes to 1:1s, if your manager likes you you're more likely to be someone they advocate for, extol the virtues of your accomplishments and so on. If your manager is liked the more likely their opinions are to carry weight.
So how to get the most value of your 1:1s? Figure out if your manager likes you and figure out if their managers likes them.
[1]: https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/783648743690231808?lang...