It's not good to gaslight people and lie to them. But sometimes you need to have a more direct conversation with someone in a 1x1 than is appropriate to have in a larger group. And sometimes you need to motivate someone in a specific way (performance issue, etc) that may not be right to demonstrate broadly. For instance, in a 1x1 "Jon, I really need you to get the signup flow working as you haven't been meeting your estimates or deadlines at all" ... and then to the team "let's get the new signup flow working, we think it will increase user engagement!"
As a manager, you never have an immediate need for regularly scheduled 1-1 meetings. You can always just ask your directs for their time and expect to get it -- rare is the employee who says no to a request from their manager to talk.
Regularly scheduled 1-1s are for the direct, to have a dedicated, planned 30 minutes a week to talk, with a person who controls your access to food, water shelter and all material needs, but whose calendar is often booked solid. Even when there's no immediate need for clarification, approval or discussion, theres still discussion about promotions and career development that need to happen more frequently than once a year or quarter.
I have rarely been unable to talk to a manager when I had a good reason.
As for promotions, career development, etc. that's not something that everyone is going to get through the organization that they work in for various reasons. (e.g. "This is a library and if you want to be promoted you have to be a librarian to get ahead")
Organizations like that don't deserve to not be able to hire computer programmers and a programmer can be perfectly satisfied working there. That programmer might be somebody who isn't ambitious or if they are ambitious they might pursue their ambitions outside of work in the form of side projects, relationships, etc.
> This is a library and if you want to be promoted you have to be a librarian to get ahead"
There's more to career development than promotion into management. Level promotions are a thing, after all. Or at the very least, annual reviews and compensation.
I agree, and from the subordinate's point of view I feel having a regularly planned session lowers the barrier to raise issues early without making things confrontational.
Its the difference between "we talked about many things, including this issue" and "we need to meet to discuss this issue". I find the second starts everyone off on a defensive foot, regardless of peoples' best intentions.
