The Hard Part Isn't the Technical Work Anymore
What I was missing in every 1:1 (and didn’t know it).
My first management role reinforced for me that everyone is navigating invisible challenges alongside their visible workload. Pandemic restrictions were still shaping how people showed up physically, emotionally, and in their relationships. Some of my team members were relieved to be back on-site in our engineering lab while some were still calculating risk every morning before they walked in the door. Many were holding heavy burdens at home they hadn’t mentioned at work. At the time, I didn’t think much about that context. Not because I wasn’t curious about the people I managed but because I was so focused on being a Good Manager TM and getting clear on the technical details that had made me successful previously. I ended up fully missing what was actually going on with the human beings on my team. Here’s what happened…
I was freshly promoted to management via a leadership development program and surrounded by peer managers who were also figuring it out the best they could. One of them shared a structured 1:1 template: what did you accomplish since last time we met, what’s up next for your project, what help do you need for the technical work. It was organized, practical, and resonated immediately with my background leading Agile teams. I thought: this is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I rolled the template out to my new team after scanning it briefly and updating it with our team name. I felt relieved to have a “best practice” to deploy and was excited to see the positive impact I was sure would emerge.
The first few 1:1s using the template were…fine. Everyone showed up with prepared answers, they were generally thorough, we covered the agenda but something felt stilted and wrong that I couldn’t quite pinpoint yet. The conversations felt scripted. The template had enough questions in it that we’d get to the end of the scheduled time and sometimes still have content to cover.
I was learning a lot about our lab, projects, and customers - and learning almost nothing about how the people on my own team were doing.
What I had done without realizing it was import a task management framework into a relationship-building context. No wonder the relationships felt stilted: the technical work was the priority; the person sitting across from me was not.
I made adjustments slowly at first: asking one open question before we opened the template and watching how people responded to it. What I noticed was that the answer to something as simple as “how is your week going?” told me far more about what the next thirty minutes should look like than any prepared agenda could.
Some people sat down visibly settled, ready to dig in. If there was a relative sense of calm, we could go forward with the agenda as planned.
Some people sat down carrying something. You could see it in how they answered the first question, if they deflected and how quickly, whether they made eye contact and what facial expressions happened. I tried to gauge this as best as I could, but I started to learn the agenda could wait and it was better for me to ask a follow-on question before assuming we should move forward with the agenda. Sometimes it was immediately clear that the meeting needed to stop being a meeting entirely and just become a conversation where I could offer support, a listening ear, or simply name a heavy thing I noticed someone might be carrying.
I had no framework for this at the time. I was learning to read it by feel, which meant I got it wrong and there were a lot of awkward silences, but the instinct I had was right. The first thing to understand in any 1:1 is not what’s on the agenda, it’s where the person in front of you actually is, emotionally. This data builds the frame for the rest of the conversation.
Since those first 1:1s, I built an actual framework to capture what I learned. It’s a way to check in with yourself before you check in on the agenda: I call it the Emotional Temperature Framework.
See below for a short summary - at the end of this issue you’ll find a link to a free PDF download with a more detailed version for your reference!
The Emotional Temperature Framework
Before starting your 1:1 agenda, take sixty seconds to read the room because the conversation your team member needs may be different from the one you both planned.
🟢 Green: Present and engaged. They’re making eye contact, their answers are direct, their energy is engaged. This person is ready to work. Proceed with the agenda.
🟡 Yellow: Slightly off. Something’s a little flat, a little distracted or fatigued. They’re doing fine, but they’re not fully present yet. Ask one more open question before you move forward. Give them a moment to arrive before making a decision about whether to proceed with the agenda.
🟠 Orange: Visibly tense. Stress, fear, or frustration is showing. This could be workload, something at home, or something else that happened today. The agenda is secondary. Acknowledge what you’re noticing; sometimes naming the tension helps it release.
🔴 Red: Distressed or overwhelmed. Something significant is happening and visible, strong emotion is present. This is not a day for project updates. Put the agenda away entirely. This is now a conversation to offer support.
The goal isn’t to become, act, or function as a therapist for your team, in fact it’s essential that team members are reminded of any Employee Assistance Program-type resources available to them and encouraged to access them at any point, not just when they are in distress. The goal is to stop treating 1:1s like status reports and start treating them like the trust-building opportunity they actually are.
You don’t have to be a mind reader to successfully apply this framework, but it does require you to pause and be aware of what you see, hear, and feel in the energy coming from the other person in your 1:1.
In the end, the 1:1 template my peer manager sent me wasn’t the wrong resource, but I needed to be more thoughtful about how I and my team chose to utilize it. The technical work still matters, of course, but the hardest part of this job —the part that determines whether the technical work gets done at all — is ensuring you are building trust with the awesome, brilliant human beings making the technical dreams possible.
The Emotional Temperature Framework is also included in The Manager’s Conversation Toolkit — a set of tools built for the exact moments no one prepares you for. The full Manager’s Conversation Toolkit is available instantly to paid subscribers. Paid subscribers also have access to it via the pinned post at the top of the subscriber section so it’s always easy to find. It includes four full 1:1 conversation templates built for the exact moments no one prepares you for.
I would love to hear about your strategies for running effective 1:1 meetings with your teams, your experiences reading the emotional temperature of your fellow human beings, and how you care for yourself through it all. Please feel free to add a comment, Substack Note, or send me a message at contact.kaleigh@proton.me. I read every reply and answer as many as I can.
See you next Tuesday,