Doing 1-on-1s Better - EAG Tips Part II

By kuhanj, Akash @ 2022-03-24T11:22 (+55)

Context

Many EAGx and EAG conferences are coming up (EAGx Oxford March 26-27, EAGx Boston April 1-3, and EAG London April 15-17), and attendees are often encouraged to spend most of their time at the conference in 1-on-1 meetings. However, the case for why 1-on-1s are so valuable is not often clear to attendees, nor is the process for setting up 1-on-1s.

We (Kuhan and Akash) thought it would be useful to share some thoughts on why we think 1-on-1s are so valuable, who to set up meetings with, and how to get the most out of them. 

Why 1-on-1s/meetings can be one of the best uses of time

Here are a few reasons why we think 1-on-1s are often valuable:

Find the right people to have 1-on-1s with

Given the ways 1-on-1s can be valuable, think about who to set up 1-on-1s with. Conferences like EAG/(x) are a great time to meet lots of people, but most community members I know are happy to have calls/in-person meetings outside of conferences as well. 

Here are a few tips to brainstorm good people to reach out to:

Once you’ve decided who would be good to reach out to, reach out over e-mail/messaging/Swapcard (during EAGs) briefly introducing yourself and why you think talking to them might be valuable (for both parties). Some people also have Calendly/meeting scheduling links publicly available where you can sign up for a time to chat. People are often busy, both in general and especially at EAG, so don’t take a lack of response as a strong signal that they aren’t interested in talking to you. People also often miss messages/emails, and appreciate being bumped if they’ve forgotten to respond. 

How to make your 1-on-1s as valuable as possible

Making 1-on-1s go as well as possible involves not only making the most of your time with your conversation partner, but also doing prep work ahead of the meeting, following up afterwards, and generally approaching meetings with the right mindset. 

Approaching meetings with the right mindset

Spencer Greenberg illustrates the idea of listening with interested attention using the following metaphor: 

Imagine you’re going to an art gallery which you’ve heard (from a reliable source) has incredible, complex art that requires effort to understand. In that circumstance, you might approach each piece of art with “interested attention”. You’re assuming there is something worth seeing there, so even if at first you don’t “get” a piece, you’re going to keep focussing on it with interest to try to uncover its value. This interest is genuine before you even know what the value is, because you’re giving the benefit of the doubt. If you start thinking about what you’re having later for lunch, or glancing ahead prematurely to the next piece of art, it’s going to interfere with the experience. The “interested attention” causes you to notice more that’s of value, but also, potentially to value more of what you notice. Contrast this with a situation where a friend dragged you unwillingly to an art gallery, and you’ve heard the art there is terrible. You may pay little attention to each piece, and view the art with little interest. If you don’t understand a piece right away, you may immediately move on to the next one. This is the opposite of “interested attention”. 

For more information on listening with Interested Attention, please see Spencer Greenberg’s writeup

We think it’s much more likely that you have a really fruitful conversation if you prepare and go into it thinking it might be quite valuable. 

Preparation ahead of the meeting

What to do during the meeting

What to do after meetings:

A few miscellaneous thoughts

Conclusion 

We hope this post (and the accompanying good questions document) can be a helpful reference to have better 1-on-1 meetings, both at EAG and in general. Some other helpful resources on 1-on-1s can be found here and here (this in particular is good to read before EAG - especially re. writing a good bio on Swapcard and reaching out with informative messages). We’d also love to hear your suggestions for how to get the most out of 1-on-1s.


 


Khorton @ 2022-03-25T12:26 (+23)

I think this post represents how a lot of people in EA feel they get the most value out of EAG, but I disagree with a lot of it and find I get more value from doing the opposite a lot of the time.

I don't have time rn to list all the areas I'd choose to act differently, although I can aim to later if people are interested, but one basic comment is that I usually find spending 2 hours with a small group of 4 who have something in common much more rewarding than spending 30 minutes in 4 different 1-1 conversations.

The 2 hour group conversation means that we don't duplicate sharing our knowledge and I can get a better sense of how these people relate to each other as well, plus I have the chance to follow up with people individually or as a group which is nice.

Lin BL @ 2022-09-11T11:56 (+3)

I know I'm a bit late to this post/thread, but I'd like to add a +1 to the above comment. I found reading this very useful (having already been to a few EAGs/EAGxs), however I have sometimes gained as much/more value out of some longer small group conversations. So it's a case of finding what works for you, and not worrying if you aren't doing all of the above!
 

I've also found 'accidental 1:1s' very useful (but with more variance), i.e. spending e 10-30 minutes speaking to random people you come across in the mornings/while having a snack/having lunch. Of course there's a larger chance that you won't have much in common with those that you meet at random, but I've also found that some of my most productive meetings at some EAGs have been the chance ones. Because of this, I deliberately leave some time free rather than booking 1:1s both for rest and for chance meetings. 

Tristan Williams @ 2023-03-01T17:08 (+1)

This is pretty far out from when this was posted, but I still find it sad to see only a negative review on this post, especially one that seems to miss the mark a bit. 

Kirsten, I'm not sure that you literally mean that you get more value from doing the opposite, or else I'm a bit confused. Fundamentally, Kuhan and Akash's post seems to be geared towards highlighting the importance of 1-on-1s and also sharing a bit about how they think you can prepare/orient yourself to them to make them go well (largely by being thoughtful about what you want out of it, and how you can help both them and the larger network you're a part of). The opposite of this take is not "hang out in groups" but rather something like "only go to lectures" or "avoid doing interactions with other people at all" which doesn't seem to be the thing you are endorsing at all. Rather, you seem to agree with the basic premise that interactions at EAG(x)s are really important, but just disagree that 1-on-1s are the best format here. 

If this isn't the case, I would really like to hear why you do value the opposite of this, because that doesn't certainly seem novel to me, but otherwise I think your comment is much better framed in what is mentioned above. But alternatively, if the take is more like the outline above, then I would also be interested in hearing you take this further, and explain a bit more why you think small groups are better, maybe share some of the experiences you've had with them, and also some thoughts on what the implications would be for this going forward (i.e. should more small group things be scheduled at EAGs, should this change how we focus on 1-on-1s with other community building things, etc.). 

It's perhaps worth noting that I've had a similar experience as you, but don't reach the same conclusions and think 1-on-1s are generally very good, depending on how you go about them. I could certainly understand why you'd dislike them if they are just sharing the same pieces of knowledge repetitively for you, but this is not the only way 1-on-1s can go, and I think maybe exploring other formats could be interesting for you. 

Kirsten @ 2023-03-01T22:37 (+4)

Yes you're right, when this was posted I had seen several recent posts about how 1-1s should be the majority of your time at EAG, so I was pushing back against that idea generally rather than this specific post. Obviously I had no idea at the time that no one else was going to choose to comment! I actually think this post is pretty good - it's certainly structured very well and easy to read which is very nice to see.

Tristan Williams @ 2023-03-01T17:11 (+2)

Quite enjoyed the post guys. I've been going through all the 1-on-1 advice recently, and I think this is a nice succinct piece capturing a lot of the good guidance out there on this, and found the interested attention quote to be quite illuminating and a fantastic addition. Would love to hear more about how you all have cultivated this sense (but given that that's incredibly vague, maybe something more specific would be how have you been able to keep interested attention in the face of something like the repetitive knowledge sharing mentioned by Kirsten below?). Thanks for your work!