Your mentee mentions it almost in passing. Their new manager started six weeks ago, and of the six weekly one to ones in the calendar, five have been cancelled. Usually at the last minute, always politely, always because something urgent came up. They laugh about it, then go quiet. Is it me?
Almost certainly not. A new manager is often drowning. They have inherited a team, a backlog and a set of promises somebody else made, and the meeting that looks easiest to move is the one with the person who seems to be doing fine. Being cancelled can be a strange kind of compliment. It still matters, because a relationship that never gets its hour slowly turns into one built on assumptions.
Your first instinct may be to offer yourself as a stand in. Bring your questions to me instead. Be careful with that. You can help them think, but you cannot approve their holiday, argue for them in a promotion meeting or tell them what the team needs next quarter. Only their manager can do those things, and the goal is to make that relationship work, not to replace it.
So help them make the meeting easier to keep. Suggest they propose something smaller. Twenty minutes instead of an hour, at a time the manager rarely has other commitments. Then help them send a short agenda the day before, three lines at most, so the manager can see the meeting is useful rather than a vague chat. A meeting with a clear purpose is much harder to cancel.
If even that keeps being moved, encourage them to say it plainly and kindly. I have noticed our one to ones keep getting cancelled, and I understand why. Could we agree on a time that works for you, or would a written update every week suit you better? Most managers are embarrassed when it is put that gently, and fix it.
Help them keep a running note of their work in the meantime. If the conversations are rare, the record matters more.
And notice what this teaches them. One day they will be the busy manager. Ask them to remember how this felt.
– Asael Shinder
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