How well do you know your team mates? Do you struggle to understand what makes some people tick and why certain people behave in particular ways?
Hybrid working has brought undoubted benefits for many; fewer days in physical workplaces, the economic and environmental benefits of reducing commuting time and fuel emissions. The flexibility of the hours you work and the accommodation of care responsibilities.
However, communication can be a key challenge. It’s been hard for new staff in hybrid roles to get to know their team members. While some staff may have a mentor or buddy to help them settle in, do they really know culture of the team they’ve joined? The unspoken workplace rules and ‘how we do things around here?’ Perhaps what’s needed for all team members is a Personal User Manual.
Personal User Manuals
A recent presentation from a colleague introduced me to the concept of Personal User Manuals. For those of you familiar with Haynes Manuals , these are instruction manuals for humans rather than cars. By inviting colleagues to share information about themselves, some of the challenges of understanding people and communicating effectively can more easily be overcome.
Personal User Manuals can:
- Help a team get to know one other & work together better.
- Reduce surprises & speed up the process of understanding how people work – especially when working remotely.
- Create vulnerability & humility and help share and celebrate differences.
- Develop self-awareness. We don’t always take time to reflect on our preferred ways of working.
Content of a Personal User Manual
If you decide this would be a useful team activity, here is how to go about it. Each member should respond to the following questions:
- One fun fact about me.
- What gives me energy at work?
- What drains me at work?
- Preferred communication channels/style.
- How to earn a gold star with me.
- How I like to receive feedback.
- Things people might misunderstand about me.
Then select 3 more from the following:
- What motivates me at work.
- Honest, unfiltered things about me.
- An ideal day at work looks like…
- My superpower is…
- My Achilles heel is…
- I do my best work when…
A record of each team member’s Personal User Manual can then be made available to all staff within the team. Any new staff member should read others’ manuals, create and then share one of their own.
I thought it only fair to illustrate by example. Feel free to mock/nod knowingly.
My Personal User Manual
One fun fact about me
I once sat behind Andy Murray on a plane to Madrid.
What gives me energy at work
Taking action to change things for the better. Collaborating with others to improve services/processes. Seeing the results of collaboration put into practice. Having fun in doing so.
What drains me at work
Spreadsheets. Every time I open one a little part of me dies. Reading long documents online. Long and pointless meetings.
Preferred communication channels/style
Keep it brief. Too much detail and it feels as though a band of steel is slowly tightening around my head.
How to earn a gold star with me
Make me laugh. Come to me with ideas and solutions, not problems.
How I like to receive feedback
Assume, when you communicate with me, that I’m doing my best. Tell me if I’ve got something wrong so I can try and fix it.
Things people might misunderstand about me
Despite being an extrovert and enjoying being around people I also crave long, uninterrupted periods of time to focus on thinking and creating.
Honest, unfiltered things about me
I swear a lot (not at people). Usually about institutional politics or things designed to make my life more difficult. I find this therapeutic and it often makes people laugh.
My superpower is…
Making connections between people and ideas and making things happen.
I do my best work when…
I am given enough rope to hang myself with. Autonomy is everything to me.
So now you know a bit more about me.
Possible pitfalls:
- It’s not an excuse to justify bad behaviour- “I already shared my flaws in my manual.”
- Including what you think you should, rather than being open. It’s only valuable if people are open and honest.
- Some staff may not be comfortable sharing their Manuals. Where this is the case, perhaps ask staff to guess which manual belongs to which staff member instead- so staff read out someone else’s. Managers should lead by example to encourage others to follow.
- Over-disclosure. There is a fine line between sharing frank and honest information and that which could be career-limiting.
More on the origin of Personal User Manuals can be found here. If you’d like to try out the activity with your team, Atlassian provides instructions for the activity and some useful templates.
Take the time to fully understand your colleagues. It can help to avoid some of the unwitting clashes that can occur when staff don’t really know each other as well as they think.
