Airbnb CEO Avoids 1-1 Meetings. Tips on How to Make Them Effective.

• Brian Chesky and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang avoid one-on-one meetings with subordinates.
• “You become like their therapist,” Chesky told Fortune.
• Yet one person who studies meetings said making an employee feel heard can have “amazing” outcomes.

Meetings are the main way Airbnb’s Brian Chesky gets work done. Yet he says the one-on-one format with a direct report is fundamentally flawed.

“Almost no great CEO in history has ever done them,” the Airbnb chief said in a recent interview.

That’s because when an employee “owns the agenda,” they bring up subjects managers don’t want to discuss — and “you become like their therapist,” Chesky said. Topics can also arise that would benefit other people at the company to hear, but instead, they’re sequestered in a one-on-one.

Of course, there are certain times when a one-on-one makes sense, Chesky told Fortune in the interview — such as when an employee is having a difficult time personally and needs to confide to a…