Mohit Aggarwal One-on-One Prep Skill
The 1:1 is the highest-leverage meeting you have — and it's wasted when it defaults to status (which belongs in writing). This skill preps an agenda built around the outcomes you want: the decisions to unblock, the asks to make, the feedback to exchange, and the career threads to keep warm — so 30 minutes moves things instead of just reporting them.
Required Inputs
Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:
- Direction — prepping for a 1:1 with your manager (managing up) or with your report (managing down)? The agenda differs.
- What's on your mind — blockers, decisions, tensions, wins, career topics (rough notes are fine).
- Anything time-sensitive or any hard thing you've been avoiding raising.
- Last 1:1's follow-ups, if any.
Output Format
1:1 Prep — with [name], [date]
1. Top topics (most important first) — for each: the topic, the outcome you want, and the framing. Lead with what needs a decision or unblock, not updates.
| Topic | Outcome I want | How I'll frame it |
|---|
2. Asks — explicit requests (a decision, air cover, a connection, time). Naming the ask is the point of the meeting.
3. Status — kept brief — 2–3 bullets of what they genuinely need to know; link the rest. Don't let this eat the meeting.
4. Feedback (both ways) — feedback to give (specific, kind, actionable) and a prompt to ask for feedback on yourself.
5. Growth / career — the longer-game thread to keep warm (a stretch goal, a development area, a promotion track).
6. Follow-ups — from last time, and what you'll commit to from this one.
Direction note: managing up → lead with decisions you need and asks; surface risks early; make it easy to help you. Managing down → lead with their agenda and growth, listen more than you talk, end with clear next steps.
Quality Checks
- Topics lead with a desired outcome, not a status recap
- At least one explicit ask is named
- Status is condensed to a few bullets (the rest written/linked)
- Feedback flows both ways, and is specific and actionable
- A growth/career thread is kept on the agenda, not just the urgent stuff
- The agenda is tuned to direction (managing up vs. down)
Anti-Patterns
- Do not turn the 1:1 into a status report — status belongs in writing; use the live time for decisions, feedback, and growth
- Do not avoid the hard topic — name it, framed constructively; the 1:1 is the safest place to raise it
- Do not arrive without an ask — "anything you need?" wastes the leverage
- Do not let career/growth fall off when things are busy — it's the first thing dropped and the most costly
- Do not over-pack — 3 real topics beat 10 skimmed
Based On
1:1 management practice (Andy Grove, High Output Management; manager-tools 1:1 cadence) — outcome-led agendas, managing up and down.