"As a counterpoint, my experience has been that having a recurring 1:1 on some cadence makes it feel less weird to flag an issue."
Agree with this completely, and is something I always introduce straight away with my team.
If someone stops me in the corridor
/ sends a slack to say "Jim's tapping drives me nuts" (as a lame example), then it's now a big thing. I have to stop what I'm doing to establish how much of a problem it actually is, and how soon I need to deal with the issue. It takes a lot to interrupt someone for something that potentially is a small, yet personally important thing, so people are less inclined to do it.
If instead, at the end of a regular scheduled one on one, as we're winding down, at the inevitable "anything else" stage, someone mentions "oh, yeah, small thing, but Jim's tapping drives me nuts", then we can discuss and establish a path forward in an open environment. Invariably they feel listened to, we can decide a way to approach the issue, and it's far less dramatic.
Agree with this completely, and is something I always introduce straight away with my team.
If someone stops me in the corridor / sends a slack to say "Jim's tapping drives me nuts" (as a lame example), then it's now a big thing. I have to stop what I'm doing to establish how much of a problem it actually is, and how soon I need to deal with the issue. It takes a lot to interrupt someone for something that potentially is a small, yet personally important thing, so people are less inclined to do it.
If instead, at the end of a regular scheduled one on one, as we're winding down, at the inevitable "anything else" stage, someone mentions "oh, yeah, small thing, but Jim's tapping drives me nuts", then we can discuss and establish a path forward in an open environment. Invariably they feel listened to, we can decide a way to approach the issue, and it's far less dramatic.