"If you make a one-on-one into a periodic meeting like ben is suggesting, it will invariably end up as yet another pointless formality." --> No, that's not true

"If you make a one-on-one into a periodic meeting like ben is suggesting, it will invariably end up as yet another pointless formality." --> No, that's not true when the manager is competent. "Ideally, in a well-run company, an employee should be able to easily walk to the CEO and talk about any problem/grievance/suggestion/new idea." --> Ideally, maybe, but what every new manager learns very quickly is that most employees simply will not proactively volunteer most of the things that you are going to need to know about what they (the employees) are thinking and feeling. Therefore, the one on one. One of the really entertaining things that happens in startups is that a half dozen people are quite capable of sitting in the same room together for a year and never actually saying most of the things that need to be said for the company to work. I've seen many situations like that where the manager finally starts 1:1's and is stunned at the number of important things that were being left unsaid.