Why and how to do skip level 1-1s
I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned about conducting skip level 1-1s.
What is a skip level 1-1?
Skip level 1-1s are a way to sense what is happening in your organization. The basic idea is:
- You schedule meetings with your “skip levels”. A skip level is the person two levels down. Your direct reports’ direct report. So if you manage Alex, and they manage Beth, you would be setting up the skip level with Beth.
- You rotate through the people in your organization in some way, eventually meeting everyone before starting over again.
Why do skip levels?
The further up you go in an organization, the less you know what’s going on. A lot of your effectiveness depends on learning to sense your organization.
Skip levels allow you to create relationships with people throughout your organization. And perhaps more importantly, they give you information about what is happening within your organization. You can learn important signals such as:
- How well your managers are managing.
- How people are feeling about recent changes.
- What struggles people are having in their jobs. What is geting in their way.
- What people are worried about.
Skip levels are like sampling — they are information rich, but not very well targeted. So use them to get deep context.
How do you organize them?
First, you have to decide your capacity for skip levels. That depends on you — I’ve generally done one or two a week.
I’ve managed the meetings a couple of ways:
- One way was to keep track in a spreadsheet, and add meetings with people every week.
- I’ve also used a tool like Donut. Donut allows you to automatically invite people to 1-1s based on mutual availability on both people’s calendars. The list of people to attend is based on who is in a Slack channel. It basically handles everything except getting the people into the Slack channel. The nice thing about this method is that you decide your capacity, and make sure people are in the room, and Donut handles everything else.
Who do you meet with?
I’ve generally worked within small to medium sized organizations. In theory you can use skip levels at any sized organization. One thing you’ll probably need to decide in a larger organization is whether you want to meet with 2 levels down, or all the way down. I suspect it’s usually valuable to go all the way down, because that keeps you grounded to the work being built. But the tradeoff is that you get less opportunity to build relationships with managers in your organization.
Since I generally keep the number of meetings limited to what I’m comfortable with every week (usually one or two), this means as your organization size changes, the frequency you meet with people changes. It could take a year to get through the whole organization!
Some tips for skip levels
Start off by telling people what to expect
Meeting with a leader with a fancy title can be scary. I make sure my invite says that it is a Skip Level 1-1, and that it is a chance to talk about anything on their mind, or give feedback on problems they’re seeing. They can give feedback on their manager, or talk about things getting in their way. Etc. Give them a list of things they might talk about, so they can feel prepared and know what to expect.
I also start off with human stuff: introducing myself, asking about them and getting to know them. If you’re aware of anything they’ve done well, mention it. It can mean a lot to them.
You also need to let the whole organization know you’re doing skip levels. Your managers should be aware, for one thing. I usually just mention it in Slack, and tell my managers in a staff meeting.
Use skip levels to assess recent changes
Leaders often rely on quantitative methods like metrics to assess the effectiveness of a change. But qualitative methods can miss a lot. Asking a lot of open ended questions can often cue you in to problems you weren’t even aware of.
One thing I love about skip levels is that I can ask about recent changes, and ask people for critique and feedback. Do they have any suggestions or recommendations on ways to improve on that change? Are they noticing ways it might be causing problems? Ask specific questions that require an answer, instead of vague queries. So for example, ask “what problems are you seeing with this reorg”, rather than, “do you have any feedback on this reorg”.
Use skip levels for deep-dives
If you’re doing skip levels, people won’t be surprised to see a meeting invite from you. This gives you an opportunity to investigate anything you’re concerned about. For example, if a manager seems to be having problems, you can reshuffle your skip levels and talk to two of their direct reports that week.
You can even do deep dives. If something makes you nervous, pack your schedule with skip levels. This is a way of really quickly assessing the situation. You’ll know more about the situation than anyone within a day or two.
Use skip levels to test your plans
Skip levels allow you to query people about topics that will affect them. If you’re planning a big change, for example, you can ask people about ways it might affect them. This gives you a chance to understand the implications of your work. Yet you do it as a natural part of your organizational work.
I sometimes use skip levels to think through topics that are nascent and early.
One danger of doing this is that you may signal to people that something needs attention. So this has to be done in a delicate way. I try to make it clear I’m speculating.
Use skip levels to verify communication or alignment
One thing you can do with skip levels is ask questions about things you believe you’ve communicated. You’ll be surprised how often people haven’t really internalized it. It’s a good sanity check for communication.
You can also ask questions about the company strategy, or other alignment issues. It can be a good test of whether people are really aligned.
Be sure to create a safe space for this. The goal is to test and learn, not to go after any individual. If you make anyone feel threatened, the entire skip level approach is sabotaged, and then you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
Use skip levels to see patterns
One thing you’ll notice with skip levels is that you’ll start hearing the same things from different people. This can often clue you in to problems you weren’t paying attention to. But it can also give you false signals. Sometimes people that are really good at amplifying the problems they’re concerned about will get a lot of other people to ALSO worry about those things. Even so, it’s useful to keep a pulse on your organization.
Be careful what you take on from skip levels
Sometimes you can be eager to help, and to show results. So you may be inclined to intervene in situations you shouldn’t. Just be sensitive to the fact that this person reports to your manager. Sometimes the best course of action is to redirect them, but let them know you will help if they’re not able to address the situation.
Thank you
Emily Nakashima sparked this post in a conversation, making me want to record some thoughts on it. Thank you, Emily! Keizan Shaffer shared some elements of his skip level practice that helped me flesh out this post. He reminded me that you can use skip levels for communication and alignment testing. And also reminded me to emphasize that you will get through everyone, but the amount of time will vary depending on the size of your organization.
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