Closinglock Innovation, Technology & Agility

Tell us about a unique principle, habit or ritual that differentiates your approach to engineering. When did you start doing this?

With all my team members, I do a quarterly “reverse one-on-one.” Most people will be familiar with holding one-on-one meetings with direct reports — the goal is typically to give time and space to discuss anything they’d like. The range of topics is broad and includes current projects, interpersonal work relationships, career goals, team process feedback and much more. Many engineering leaders will know that these one-on-ones are crucial for understanding where each member of your team is at, how they are feeling and what things might need to change for the betterment of team health.

The reverse one-on-one is exactly what it sounds like. I ask my direct reports to conduct a one-on-one in which they act as my manager, and I bring issues, struggles and team feedback to the table. I started doing this two years ago after one of my team members asked for mentorship on leveling up their leadership skills while still being in an individual contributor role.
 

What differences did you notice after you adopted reverse one-on-ones in your work? 

After starting reverse one-on-ones, I noticed that team members felt more comfortable bringing up issues after seeing me be transparent and vulnerable about the challenges in my role.

It gives precedent to engineers who did not have had one-on-ones in previous roles regarding the scope of topics they could, and should, bring up during these meetings — it’s not just 30 minutes to discuss work projects. I’ve seen team members finding our regular one-on-ones much more rewarding after learning they can bring more complex or in-depth topics to the table other than how their current work is going.

This practice also gives tangible experience to engineers looking to move into management positions, where they would often need to conduct this style of meeting. Along with real issues and topics I want to discuss, I’ll go through simulated conversations for team members who would like to progress in a management route, such as “I feel like I’m being undervalued in my compensation,” or “I’m struggling to work with another team member and feel like I’m having to take up their slack.” This gives them a low-stress environment to think through how to approach these conversations.

What does this approach to engineering help you and your team accomplish?

I want to foster a culture of transparency and openness in my teams. The reverse one-on-one is a great platform that gives me dedicated time with each team member to lead by example. It helps level up the team by providing management-level experience. This process also helps me become a better leader by learning from interesting prompts and responses to the issues that my incredible team at Closinglock brings up. For such a simple practice that is easy to implement, I have been incredibly happy with the growth and culture it has brought.