Thoughts on how to make the most of regular touchbases with manager? Manager usually asks what I want to talk about and I’m not really sure beyond updating on what I’m working on.

Are reports usually the ones driving the conversation? If so, what do you talk about besides working towards promo? Sorry if this is a noob question, from a low income background and still learning how to navigate the professional world

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So as someone in the middle on this kind of relationship - I drive the conversation. I update my supervisor or leadership on what’s going on with me. Try to ask about their lives as appropriate.

For my direct reports, I want them to set up the meets and hopefully know what they want to talk about, but I don’t always see they have an agenda. So I try to ask more from my perspective and offer some growth avenues to be explored. And of course ask about their personal lives.

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Oh and income shouldn’t, hopefully play in. It’s not a measuring contest. Don’t forget where you came from but you white holler now so use it as a motivator and what keeps you humble, do not ever allow it to handicap you.

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Ask, “what’s the one thing I can be doing better?” if you’re struggling to get feedback

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Talk about medium/longer term career goals - not necessarily “I want x job” but “I’m really enjoying doing y and z and want to keep doing more of it” or “I’ve been thinking about out x”

I recently read “the first time manager” (after working with the most idiot manager ever) and in the book the idea behind frequent touch points is to ensure you can ask questions and the book is like and sometimes the meeting is just (I’m paraphrasing) “everything good?” “Ok yea” “ok cool, see you next week”.

Could “network” to build relationship a bit asking questions about hobbies or work life balance or advice. And sometimes, I think it’s fine to just say everything is going well, end early and both do work 😊

Don’t worry about internal promotions or career guidance. Just focus on your exit plan. What tech skills do you need to exit to FAANG? Ask yourself that, tell your manager you need help to get opportunities to achieve them and ignore all of the rest.

When meeting with directs, I usually come with 1-2 things I need or want to let them know, new information, etc, plus 1-2 questions either about current work, how they are feeling about their performance and where they need my help. Most come to these calls prepared with questions for me and areas where they need my assistance to deal with barriers or issues. Updating me on status ought to be a very small piece of the call if any.
But - it may be a good idea to ask your manager what they most want or need from the calls. You can say something like, “We’ve been meeting for a while and I have been reflecting on how to make the most of my time with you and thought it might be a good time to stop and talk through what we each want to get out of these conversations.” Because some managers really do just want a status update.

I was low-income and the first in my family to be white collar, so I had to learn these things the hard way. Below is my format for these calls and how I coach my directs.

With regard to work:
*let them know:
-what you're doing,
-where you're at, and
-where you're going.
+For this, think about your tasks within the grand scheme of your project and the teams project or overarching responsibilities. State it as a suggestion and finish with, "does that sound right?"

*then ask whatever questions you have about:
-the tactical work,
+e.g., "I'm struggling with this, do you have any past examples I can review?" or
-the higher-level purpose
+e.g., "I'm done with X, but not sure I really understand how it fits into the bigger picture, how do you think about it?"

On the career development side:
*I always use my recent reviews as the foundation and then say:
1) "I believe I'm performing at X level on these 3 things based on my feedback, therefore my understanding is that I need to improve on Y before I'm ready for the next level; does that match your perspective or am I off on anything?"
2) "My plan to improve Y is ABC; thoughts?"
3) "What else could I be better at?"

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