It's time for your weekly 1:1 with your manager. You have those, right? I hope so. That's fodder for another time, because it wasn't always that way for me. My manager and I are both remote, in the sense that we're working from our homes, neither one of us in a traditional office setting. With all of my meetings being Webex-based, I quickly grow tired of sitting in front of my camera and talking, whether it's with a group or one-on-one.
One one of the plentiful sunny days we've had here in upstate New York this summer, I looked out the window and felt the pull to be outside. I had a half-hour 1:1 scheduled in a few minutes. I wondered: would my manager, who lives 350 miles away from me, be up for a walk? I sent him a note in Teams to ask. Yes! He was game. We gave each other a few minutes to lace up and get out of our respective front doors.
We had a delightful half-hour walk and talk. We talked about my career aspirations, how things were going on projects, and how we could better manage our team and processes. The time flew by. We talked for a few minutes about what things looked like for us as we walked in our respective neighborhoods. I know he has a big hill near the end of his walk before he gets back home. He knows that my town has no traffic lights. Little things, but more of a connection nonetheless.
We've had three such 1:1 meetings, and each one has been better than the last. I even walked my way through a sprint retrospective (software developers will know what that means) and found myself more engaged and talkative than had I been at my desk. So there you have it: an innovative, heart rate-boosting way to hold remote 1:1s with your manager.
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