your 121s aren't working

Most remote managers are running their 121s exactly the way they've always run them... which is exactly why they're not working.

In today's send:
✅ What most 121s are actually doing vs. what they're supposed to
✅ The habits that quietly turn a useful check-in into noise
✅ What a 121 that actually works looks like for a distributed team

But first:

Top reads this week:

• Toggl's guide to remote hiring is one of the more thorough ones out there, worth going through before your next role opens.

• The Slack team have been doing async longer than most & their breakdown of what actually works is one of the better reads on the topic.

• 11 remote management strategies that actually hold up in practice.

What most 121s are actually doing

If you ask a manager what their 121s are for, most will say something like checking in, staying connected, making sure things are on track.

If you ask their team members, you'll often get a different answer: catching up on tasks, running through a list, not much.

That gap is the problem.

A 121 that functions as a status update is one your team member could have sent in an email. And in a remote team, where the 121 is often the only dedicated face time someone has with their manager all week, that's a real miss, because the things that actually need that time (career growth, blockers that feel uncomfortable to raise in Slack, feedback that goes both ways) rarely come up in a task review.

The format isn't wrong. The purpose got lost somewhere.

The habits that make them useless

The most common pattern is a manager-led agenda. The manager opens the call, runs through a list of projects, asks for updates, closes the call. The team member answers questions but rarely brings their own.

And after a few weeks of that, most people stop trying to.

A second one is the check-in that never leads anywhere. Someone raises something hard, the manager says good to know, let me think about that, and nothing changes. The team member files it away as not worth raising next time and the 121 gets a little quieter every week.

Neither of those is malicious.

Both of them are fixable with one change.

What good actually looks like

The simplest shift is handing the agenda to your team member.

Not permanently, not forever, just for one meeting.

Ask them to bring three things they want to cover:

• something they're working on

• something that's in the way,

• something they want from you.

See what comes up.

Most managers are surprised by what they hear when they stop running the meeting.

The second shift is following through, consistently and visibly.

If someone raises something in a 121 and nothing happens, they learn that 121s are where things go to be heard and then forgotten.

If you respond to what they raise, even just with I looked into that and here's where we landed, the trust compounds quickly.

Remote teams don't have hallway conversations or ambient context.

The 121 is often the whole relationship, so it's worth treating it that way.

ATR tip of the week

Before your next 121, send your team member a message asking them to set the agenda. Tell them you want to hear what's on their mind rather than running through your list. Then stay quiet for the first five minutes and see what they bring.

Forward this to a remote manager who runs the same 121 agenda every week and wonders why the conversation feels flat 👀

Other reads:

• Not every remote team needs the same stack, but most founders are running too many tools with no clear rules for any of them. This breaks down what you actually need and what you can drop.

• Performance reviews feel awkward in most offices. Remote makes them even harder to get right. Here's what actually works for distributed teams.

• Burnout in remote teams is a leadership problem, not a wellness problem. Practical strategies for founders who want to catch it before it becomes obvious.

New Harvard Business Review Analytic Services report: why most AI tools fail at B2B customer service, and what to ask before you invest. Get the free report.

Have a great week!

Thanks,
Sam

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