That's hyperbole on both sides, both the "terrified" part (implying an employee shaking in fear before their 1-1) and "disastrously wrong" (a sweeping write-off

That's hyperbole on both sides, both the "terrified" part (implying an employee shaking in fear before their 1-1) and "disastrously wrong" (a sweeping write-off of this multidimensional thing called "culture"). Simple truth is a lot of people don't like them, they induce stress for a number of reasons (such as employees' natural instinct to want to "look good" in front of their bosses), and bad 1-1s are often just another annoyance at work -- not a disaster, just not too useful.