I'm holding 1-on-1s, but my subordinate won't talk to me.

When I first started 1-on-1s,

I thought I was listening to my subordinate.

“How have things been lately?”
“Is there anything you're struggling with?”

Even when I asked that, there was no reply.

A silence hung in the air.

Unable to bear it, I would say,

“I want you to take on this challenge.”
“You should learn this while you have the chance.”

Before I knew it,
I was the one doing all the talking.

It was supposed to start with my subordinate's concerns,

but in the end,
it turned into my own personal anecdotes.

“I understand. Back in my day...”

With those words,
I had stolen the conversation time and time again.

The timer for the 1-on-1 goes off.

“Thank you very much.”

My subordinate gets up from their seat.

In my notebook,
only my own words remained.

Even though it was supposed to be my subordinate's time,
the one who talked the most
was me.

Something was wrong.

That's what I thought.

What I wanted to know was

what my subordinate was thinking,

what they were struggling with,

and what they wanted to do.

I didn't want to just give them the answers.

From that point on,
I tried changing my 1-on-1 approach a little.

The next 1-on-1.

“Are you enjoying your work lately?”

When I asked that,
silence fell once again.

Before,
I would have started talking right then.

That day,

I tried waiting.

It was long.

It felt like minutes.

“...Actually.”

My subordinate
began to speak, slowly.

“Lately, I haven't been enjoying my work very much.”

“So, you haven't been enjoying your work much lately.”

I reply to that, and write on a piece of paper,

"I don't really enjoy my work."

"Anything else?"

"I'm worried about whether I'm meeting expectations."


I write that down next to the other one.

Words gradually line up on the paper.
"Which of these words concerns you a little?"

I line up the other person's words.

I connect them.

I confirm them.

"Is this understanding correct?"


I take the thoughts in their head, turn them into words, and lay them out in front of them.
What do they notice from that?


What do they choose?

That is left up to the subordinate themselves.

It was strange.


Rather than me giving the answers, the subordinate took more action when they chose the answers themselves.
Before I knew it, silence was no longer a scary time, but a time for the other person to think.

About half a year has passed since I changed to this method.


The other day, when I was about to end a 1-on-1,
the subordinate opened their mouth, looking a bit hesitant.


"How long will you continue doing these 1-on-1s?"


For a moment, my heart went cold, thinking I was being rejected.
"If you don't mind, I intend to continue them."
When I answered that, after a short pause, the subordinate smiled as if relieved.


"I want you to continue them next year, too."
For a moment, I didn't understand what they meant.

New employees will be joining next year.


They seemed to think that since this was an initiative for new hires, it was only for this year for them.
Those words made me truly happy.


Is this the right way to do it?
I hesitated many times.


This isn't a 1-on-1 started because the company told me to.
I failed in my interactions with people, read books, tried things at work, failed, and tried again.


It was a cycle of that.
"I want you to continue them next year, too."


Every time I look back on those words, I think that it was good that I waited that day.
The most important thing in a 1-on-1 was not talking, but waiting.