Michael Lopp - The Art of Leadership: Small Things, Done Well

This is a book full of small things. Simple, memorable leadership acts and practices that Ive gathered and refined over the years.

Heres my favorite: Ive preached 1:1s, weekly recurring meetings with direct reports, for decades. I believe a 1:1 represents the simplest and most reliable way to build trust between you and your coworkers, by providing a weekly high-bandwidth conversation on current events affecting the team. 1:1s are the first meeting I schedule when I show up at a new gig and they are the last meeting Ill reschedule or cancel during busy times. 1:1s have been my team-building go-to move for years.

Whered this belief come from? Why do I think theyre so important? I discovered 1:1s at Netscape in the mid-1990s. A recurring weekly meeting with the boss. It was a thing that managers did, but that didnt make them relevant. Just work that I was supposed to do, so I scheduled them.

Months and years passed, and I dutifully did my 1:1s. A habit? Perhaps a better term to describe whats contained inside this book would be leadership habitssmall acts, repeated over time until they become second nature. There is an intersection between my list of small things and habits, but youre not going to learn from these practices just by having them become second nature.

What I discovered after hundreds of 1:1s was that these meetings presented the highest signal of the week. Real conversations about the important topics that week. Critical bidirectional conversations revealing information that I have found no other reliable way of discovering.

My belief in 1:1s, the reason I schedule them for 30 minutes, every week, no matter what, is because Ive now done thousands of them. Ive learned how to always productively fill the time, I know how to get the curmudgeonly engineer to appreciate them, I know what to do when they go sideways, and I have a good idea whats up when someone declines them without reason. They are a habit, but the habit isnt what taught me that 1:1s are importantit was the compounding value of the experience gained performing each one.

I learned that 1:1s are the single best way to build professional trust and respect with your teambut you wont truly believe me until youve done a couple hundred of them and seen the results for yourself.