How to Avoid Awkward Silences in your One-on-One Meetings

The standard advice for 1:1s is that it’s the team member’s meeting.  It’s a dedicated space where they know they’re going to be heard.  Where they know there’s going to be time to discuss whatever is most important to them.

That all sounds great.

But what if they don’t say anything?

(This happens more often than some managers would care to admit).

To fix the issue, we first need to understand what the problem is.

Emmanuel Goossaert, a Senior Engineering Manager at Booking.com has a quick framework for diagnosing this. 

If you find that a team member consistently fails to bring things to discuss with you in your one-on-ones, it’s a sign of one of the following:

• They’re too busy or overwhelmed to reflect on their work: people are burned out.  And even if they’re not burned out, in a busy week, it can be hard to find the focus to have a constructive 1:1.  You’re the manager, you control their workload. The fix for this isn’t complicated and their lack of engagement is a symptom that you should consider taking action.

• They’re unsure how to best use the time: sometimes people are quiet because they’re not used to the 1:1 format and aren’t sure how it can benefit them.  If you think this might be the case, it may be useful to give the individual some examples of ways you’ve used 1:1s to good effect with your boss in your own career. 

• They don’t trust you as a manager: in the early stages of a manager-team member relationship, this isn’t a problem per se - building trust takes time.  The key is matching the level of discussion to the level of trust.  If you’ve only just met, the team member might be understandably reluctant to discuss personal issues or their long-term plans, but you can break the silence by introducing topics which are less challenging to begin building the rapport.