I actually don't agree. I'm a manager who does regularly scheduled 1-1s with direct reports and I couldn't tell you how many times something unexpectedly comes up that wouldn't have been talked about otherwise. It's also very important just to establish basic rapport between manager and direct report. 1-1s aren't always about conducting business.

You have to keep in mind your manager is also meeting with sixteen other people, so he's seeing a much higher-level picture of the value of these 1-1s than you are.

I have great rapport with my manager. And he agrees with me on 1-1s, he was super approachable before the 1-1 edict was handed down to him, and he went out of his way to touch base with you regularly. His life right now is wall to wall meetings all week long.

You may think your fixed 1-1s are effective for you, but that doesn’t mean your reports all agree.

Is it possible having seventeen direct reports might be at least partially the problem?

Yep

We rolled out 1-1s slowly and only because they received overwhelming support and positive feedback. We've run surveys which clearly show that people doing 1-1s report better communication and more satisfaction with their managers, and direct reports in parts of the company that don't do 1-1s have requested them.

I think you are again looking at a broader problem from the perspective of a single example. Also, hopefully your manager doesn't force a 1-1 to go on for a fixed amount of time even if neither of you have anything to talk about.

There should be weekly 1-1 between the manager and the employee, especially at the beginning. Neither side will schedule meetings when things pop ups, major issues can go silent for weeks.

After a while of building the relationship, meetings can be spaced a bit for senior folks who are autonomous.