As you climb to higher management levels and begin leading other managers, keeping in touch with your team's pulse can become difficult. Understanding what is happening at the lowest levels can help you wrap context around what your team brings you. You may also need to build stronger support for your goals and direction.  Introducing skip-level one-on-ones can be an effective way to increase your engagement and understanding with your whole team. The most important thing you can do with your time is communicate with your team! How to start If you are serious about strengthening your connection with your team through skip-level one-on-ones, you should start with a plan. It is critical to be clear about what you want to achieve with these conversations, or you may cause stress or conflict within your team. Clarify Your Goals Start by setting aside some dedicated time to consider what you want to achieve with these one-on-ones. Here are some questions to answer to help y...

Just about every problem I work through in my role boils down to needing to communicate more and more often. Early on, as an engineering leader, I had to tackle a strange communication problem. I led a small team of 3-4 engineers who supported our production development teams. This team had fully embraced a Scrum mindset, and due to rapid prototyping requirements, the team worked in one-week sprints. This means we had planning, standups, retro, and demos every five days. Between standups and other ceremonies, they collaborated daily, looking for peer reviews and technical support. They were proud of their ability to be direct with each other, not needing to "sugarcoat" the message. Yet there was still a problem. The team was always working in drastically different directions and at various technical levels, constantly bickering about what needed to be done. One-on-ones with me were full of complaints about other team members and were always heated. How could there be such...