Leading People
How we run 1:1s and performance conversations at Systeric. The cadence is the same for everyone who manages people. The templates live in the links below.
The Three Levels
Every manager runs three types of conversations with their direct reports. Each has a different purpose and a different timescale.
Biweekly, 30 minutes — accountability and unblocking. The default for every direct report. They fill out the biweekly template before you meet. You read it in advance. The meeting is for solving problems, not reading updates. Three things to watch for every time: are their goals on track, what is blocking them that you can remove, and are they giving and receiving honest feedback. If someone consistently has nothing to bring, either the work is not stretching them or the format has not been made clear.
Quarterly, 60-90 minutes — direction and growth. The quarterly is a goal-setting conversation, not a goal-receiving one. Both the manager and the report come with something.
Before the meeting, the manager sets direction: two sentences per person about where they need to be by end of quarter and why. This is the top-down input. Not a task list — a directional statement about what the team needs this person to own, or what capability they need to unlock. Write this before you sit down together.
Good direction is concrete and owned. “By end of Q3, I need you owning the payments migration — architecture, shipping, zero P0s. I should not be in any of those decisions.” For a PM: “By end of Q3, you run product discovery on the mobile redesign without me in the room. You present to exec, you get it approved.” Bad direction sounds like “keep making progress on your goals.” That is noise.
The report fills out the quarterly template with their proposed goals before the meeting. This is the bottom-up input. Read it before you meet.
In the conversation, start with direction. Two sentences, no hedging. Then walk through their proposed goals. For each goal: does it connect to the direction? If yes, sharpen it together — deliverable, number, timeline. If no, name it and redirect. If the direction requires something not in their list, name it together and add it.
End state: three goals the report owns that serve the direction. They should be able to say exactly what they are building and why it matters without looking at notes. If they cannot, the goals are not right yet.
What misalignment looks like, and how to handle it:
- They propose comfort goals that don’t stretch them. Add one that scares them. “This one you’ll hit easily. Here’s what I also need from you.”
- They propose a goal that matters personally but not to the team this quarter. Have the honest conversation. Sometimes the answer is “not this quarter.” Sometimes you find a version that serves both.
- They don’t know what the direction is — they’re operating without enough context. That is a manager failure, not theirs. Give them the context first, then set goals.
For people you are investing in more heavily — the ones showing ceiling-breaking potential — the quarterly goes further: where they want to be in three years, what they are afraid of, where they are playing small. Do not do this for everyone. Do it intentionally for the people who show up fully.
Annual, 60-90 minutes — performance, compensation, and what is next. Once a year, look back across four quarters. What did they deliver? How did they grow? Where did they fall short? This feeds the compensation and promotion conversation. The rule: no surprises. If someone hears something for the first time in the annual review, the manager failed during the year. The annual self-review is built from four quarterly summaries — each quarter’s win log feeds directly into it.
Adjusting the Cadence
Not everyone needs the same frequency.
| Situation | Cadence |
|---|---|
| New hire, first 90 days | Weekly — patterns transfer faster with a tight feedback loop |
| Solid performer, on track | Biweekly |
| Struggling or on a PIP | Weekly until resolved |
| High performer, crushing it | Biweekly — do not reduce, this is when trust is built |
| Major project with tight deadline | Weekly until shipped |
After 90 days, new hires move to biweekly. The extra frequency during onboarding is not supervision. It is how norms and expectations transfer before someone has built their own judgment about what good looks like here.
What the Manager Brings
The report fills out the template. The manager brings:
- Questions, not judgments. “Why did you structure it this way?” not “that was wrong.”
- Decisions. When something is blocked waiting on you, resolve it in the meeting or commit to a time.
- Honesty. If performance is off track, name it clearly and specifically. Not at the annual review — during the biweekly, when there is still time to change it.
- One piece of feedback every time. At least one thanks-for and one wish-that, every meeting, both directions.
The No-Surprises Rule
Everything in the annual review should already be known. Compensation, performance grade, promotion decision — none of it should be news. If it is, the biweekly conversations were not honest enough.
The annual review is documentation, not revelation.
Templates: Biweekly 1:1, Quarterly 1:1, Annual Self-Review, Performance Reviews