If you work in a corporate environment, you must be familiar with 1-on-1 meetings. These meetings are often half an hour long, recurring and where a senior manager meets with a more junior person to discuss work and provide feedback. It sounds like a sensible thing and in fact, most companies have this kind of meetings at almost every level. The CEOs of AirBnd and Nvidia, though, don’t do 1-on-1s. They think the concept is flawed and doesn’t provide values.

According to Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, there are two reasons why he doesn’t follow this conventional management wisdom. First, the executive staff who report directly to him should be experienced and capable enough in the first place that they do not need regular monitoring and coaching from him. If that were the case, there would be a bigger problem than just a debate on a management tactic. Second, Jensen thinks that 1-on-1s are a platform for sharing learning, but learning doesn’t have to be limited to one person. He argues that just because one person creates the context and conditions for learning doesn’t mean that only that person should benefit from it. Hence, whenever he provides feedback, he does it in front of everyone, so that they all can learn. It’s better for the organization.

Brian Chesky looks at this issue from another angle. To Brian, employees usually come to 1-on-1s with a personal agenda that is different from what managers want to discuss and that’s not productive. In his opinion, a senior executive can talk directly to a junior person occasionally to discuss a project. If there is a really sensitive matter that needs a private audience, that should be infrequent, not recurring.

I think these two CEOs have a point. However, it likely will require a culture shift across an organization to ditch 1-on-1s and switch to another model. The change needs to come from the top. For instance, if a senior manager contacts a junior staff of another manager out or ordinary, the other manager will complain to his boss (Vice President) about this because he thinks that the chain command should be respected. However, if the cultural shift starts from the Vice President for his department, then every manager under him can do the same.

Furthermore, not everyone has the mental makeup to receive public feedback at first. People don’t tend to like public humiliation. They need to be conditioned to think that the public coaching is not to humiliate them, but to share the learning at scale. That takes some messaging and communication.

In my professional life, I do want to be a manager. Everyone that I talked to said that being a manager was not easy. It’s an entirely different skillset. I want to challenge myself and acquire that skillset. Hence, it’s helpful to hear these two very successful CEOs share their management style.