Skip-level meeting questions

A skip-level meeting has three jobs:

1. Learn what the department has to get right this year.
2. Learn how and when decisions are made.
3. Leave one result and your direction in their mind.

Pick five of these twelve questions.

What the department is trying to do

1. "What does this department have to get right this year?"
2. "What are you being measured on?"
3. "Which of our team's projects matters most to that?"
4. "What would you stop doing if you could?"

How decisions get made

5. "How are priorities for next year decided, and when?"
6. "When are new roles and budgets settled?"
7. "What do you look for when a manager puts someone forward?"
8. "What do you wish people at my level understood about how that works?"

Where your work fits

9. "From where you sit, what does our team do well, and what is not visible to you?"
10. "I am working on [result]. Is that useful to what you described?"
11. "Over the next year or two I am aiming for [direction]. What would you advise?"
12. "Who else should I learn from?"

A skip-level meeting is a conversation with your manager's manager. Some companies schedule them. In others you ask for one.

Decisions about roles, promotions and pay are usually made one or two levels above you, on set dates. Most people never learn how that works, because they never ask anyone who is in the room. The skip-level meeting is your chance to ask.

Most lists of skip-level meeting questions start with hobbies and weekend plans. A few minutes of that is fine. The meeting is short, and those questions teach you nothing you can use.

Your manager is the person who will carry your case. Do not surprise them.

Then send your three most important questions to the senior manager a day ahead. They can prepare, and the meeting starts further along.

• Ask, then listen. Write down every date you hear.
• Give one result, in two sentences, with what it changed.
• Say your direction, not your request. "I am aiming for a senior analyst role" is a direction. "I want a promotion this year" is a request, and it goes through your manager.

In your record. Put the dates on your calendar. Put what the department is measured on next to your objectives. If one of your projects serves none of it, raise that with your manager.

By email. Send two short messages the same day.

To the senior manager:

To your own manager:

• Do not complain about your manager.
• Do not ask for a raise or a promotion. That request goes through your manager, with one page they can carry.
• Do not bring status. They can read that elsewhere.
• Do not ask what is already on the intranet.

Ask about recent, specific work. Say what you are measured on this year. Say when roles and budgets are decided. Most people on your teams have never been told, and they can only plan around dates they know.

• The meeting is small talk. Send three questions ahead next time.
• You got no clear answers. Ask one question by email afterwards: "When are roles for next year settled?"
• Your manager is uneasy about it. Share your questions with them first, and your notes afterwards.

How do I ask for a skip-level meeting? Ask your manager first: "I would like thirty minutes with Dana to understand next year's priorities. Are you comfortable with that?"

How often should they happen? As often as they are offered. One or two a year is enough to learn the dates.

How long should it be? Thirty minutes is plenty for five questions.

The dates you learn in a skip-level meeting are the centre of a year-long routine. The full method is free: Start your annual review on day one. The free workbook has a place for the dates and for what the department is measured on.

If you would rather have it kept for you, a coach that runs it is planned.