Career Growth Is Not a Meeting You Attend

I hear mixed opinions about one-on-ones all the time. For some people they are a blessing. For others they feel like a waste.

My own experience has mostly been positive. I worked with managers who took these conversations seriously. The good one-on-ones were never a ritual to survive. They helped me think clearly, get unstuck, and leave with a better plan.

When I asked people about their experience, I heard the same split, and you can see it in the replies here:

Working on a new post about 1 on 1 meetings, and how they can be extremely valuable for one, but worthless for the other.

I'm lucky that I've had great mentors and managers, so in my experience they have been extremely valuable, but I hear different experiences.

What is your...

— Joachim Zeelmaekers (@joachimz_me) February 27, 2026

Some one-on-ones genuinely shaped careers. People felt seen, challenged, and supported. They still reach out to former leaders because those conversations mattered.

Others felt like calendar fillers. Status updates disguised as coaching. A manager trying to track activity instead of improving conditions.

The difference was intent.

The best one-on-ones happened when the manager showed up curious. Curious about what was blocking me, what was slowing me down, and what I needed to grow. The worst ones happened when there was no preparation.

That is why one-on-ones are powerful, even though not all of them are perfect, they give YOU the perfect opportunity to grow.

The question is, will you take that opportunity?

Preparation

The one-on-ones that failed for me were predictable:

• no clear goal or agenda
• no evidence of progress
• no concrete ask

In short, no preparation.

When that happens, the conversation defaults to updates, logistics, and whatever fire happened that week.

None of that is bad. Some one-on-ones should be casual like this. But I am talking about the ones that are meant to help you grow.

The meeting is not where growth happens

I used to think one-on-ones were where growth happened.

Now I think they are where growth is evaluated.

The real work happens before and after the meeting:

• pick a skill to improve
• practice it in real work
• ask for targeted feedback
• adjust based on what you learned

Your manager can support this process. But they cannot run it for you.

What to bring to every one-on-one

Once a one-on-one is properly structured, they get much better. So make sure to structure them. You don’t like the format? Change it.

Here are the four things that worked for me.

1. A short wins list

Not for ego. For evidence.

What did you deliver? What improved? What impact did it have?

You can shortly discuss it with your manager, and at the same time you can use it for future evaluations. Win-Win!

2. One blocker

Not a list of complaints. One blocker that matters.

Maybe your pull requests take too long to merge. Maybe stakeholder alignment is messy. Maybe you freeze in architecture discussions.

Pick one. Make it specific. That way it can be talked about, reviewed and actioned.

A good manager does not need this meeting to track your tasks. There are better systems for that. The meeting is more useful when it focuses on what is preventing good work.

3. One skill gap you are working on (optional sometimes)

This is the part most people skip.

Say it directly: I need to improve at X. Here is how it shows up and this is what I’ll be doing about it.

Examples:

• turning ambiguous tasks into executable plans
• giving clear technical updates to non-technical stakeholders
• writing smaller, easier-to-review pull requests

This will be a way to keep yourself accountable on the next session. Did you really improve, or were these just meaningless words?

4. One concrete ask

This one depends on the frequency of your one-on-ones. If you have a weekly one, asking for something every week can feel very needy.

But a general rule of thumb should be if your one-on-one ends without an ask, do not expect much to change.

Your manager is busy. He/She cannot read your mind, so if you don’t ask for anything, expect nothing.

Ask for something actionable:

• Can I lead the next retrospective?
• Can we define what senior-level ownership looks like for my scope?
• Can you review my design doc and challenge my assumptions?

The least you can get is a no. So ask what you want to ask, and make it clear.

Development plans that actually survive

Most development plans start strong and then disappear. It’s easy to create a plan, but it’s hard to execute it.

Not because people are lazy. The opposite actually.

I struggled with this a lot. I always prioritized my work over my personal development time. Not because I didn’t want to do it, but more because I felt I had to work harder, do more. But ultimately, it makes you do less in the long run.

What worked better for me was treating growth like a real project, because real projects are exciting and make me want to work on it. You also have something to show for, which gives that same dopamine as finishing tickets, or implementing new features.

So where can I start, you might ask? Build a six-month plan, then break it into trackable pieces.

Six months is long enough to change behavior and short enough to stay grounded.

A simple structure:

• Pick one growth theme for six months.
• Define what “better” looks like in observable terms.
• Break it into monthly focus areas.
• Create one monthly opportunity to practice.
• Review monthly and adjust.

“Become a better leader” is not a plan.

“Over the next six months, lead one cross-team technical discussion per month, write a short recap, and ask two stakeholders for written feedback each time” is a plan.

The uncomfortable part

It is easy to say my manager is not helping me grow.

Sometimes that is true. Some managers are not the best coaches. Some environments are genuinely limiting. Some organizations split people management and technical leadership, which is makes you focus on one or the other, instead of working on both.

But in many cases, the harder truth is this: we expect growth to happen around us, not through us.

We wait for better projects, better timing, better guidance, better recognition.

Meanwhile, weeks pass, then months.

One-on-ones do not create progress by themselves. They reveal whether progress is happening. If every meeting feels the same and something is not moving. That is the moment to reset expectations and change the inputs.

Final thought

One-on-ones matter. Development plans matter.

But they are not magic.

If you’re not coming up with anything, and your manager is not delivering what you’re expecting, you will stay where you are indefinitely.

It’s up to you to make things happen.