Jason Treu* says creating a detailed roadmap of team members’ individual preferences and styles can reduce misunderstandings and increase trust.
Photo: Terminator3D
Learning how best to work with others is a huge challenge that often derails and stalls organisations.
I’ve seen tremendously talented and productive teams struggle because of subtle misunderstandings, miscommunications and unspoken conflicts.
Leaders often talk about the importance of teamwork, but they rarely say exactly how to do it.
Here’s one game-changing step your team can take: implementing a “How to Work with Me” manual and process.
It’s a detailed roadmap on individual preferences for areas such as communication, trust and pet peeves.
It sets clear expectations on how to interact without trying to guess what the other person means.
It allows people to be authentic without being misunderstood.
It also instantly increases trust and team chemistry.
Guessing what people want is not communication
No matter how well we think we read people, everyone could use some help.
We all have different personalities, communication styles, expectations and needs.
That creates challenging dynamics when you bring together leaders, managers and employees and expect them to accomplish difficult goals.
Organisations throw people together in teams and expect them to magically figure out each other’s preferences and hot buttons.
People often end up trying to analyse and predict what others like, hate, need and want, instead of asking them directly.
This results in a rollercoaster ride of confusion, miscommunication, misunderstandings, unmet expectations, anxiety, fear and disappointment.
Here are a few data points on communication costs to make it more real:
- 86 per cent of employees and executives in a survey cited lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.
- Miscommunication reportedly costs an organisation of 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year.
- Teams of five employees (in conflict) waste between 200 and 275 hours per month on misunderstandings, poor communication, lack of teamwork and emotional turmoil.
- Poor managers are a factor in at least three-quarters of the reasons for voluntary turnover.
These are staggering and massive costs that organisations face every year.
Yet the time, effort and money to solve them are minimal.
How much easier it would be to work with others if everyone received specific, detailed instructions on exactly how to best communicate and collaborate, bring up touchy subjects, navigate conflicts and support them?
The premise of a “How to Work with Me” manual is to learn to interact with people in the way that works best for them, not how you think it should work or how we see the world.
We have to adapt and meet people where they are.
Otherwise it’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
For example, you could approach difficult conversations with two employees in the exact same way and get two completely different outcomes.
Now think about how much chaos it would cause if everyone acted in a similar way across an organisation of hundreds or thousands of people.
The ‘How to Work with Me’ manual and process
The manual is a short teaching guide or “cheat sheet” that provides insights and clarity into personality types, preferences, experiences, communication and collaboration styles, needs, expectations, quirks, pet peeves, values, blind spots and areas of growth.
Who is it for?
Any size of organisation in any industry and teams and working groups can use it, even without organisational buy-in.
Virtual, remote and global teams really benefit from this.
How would you roll it out organisation-wide?
Get every manager and employee to fill it out.
Have each team meet one-on-one to discuss the document and ask questions to gain additional clarity and understanding.
Managers would participate in this.
Have each manager get their team to discuss it to share insights and observations.
‘How to Work with Me’ manual questions (pick 10)
- How can people earn an extra gold star with you?
- What qualities do you particularly value in people who work with you?
- What are some things that people might misunderstand about you? What misunderstandings have you had in the past? Are there any personality types that you may have more challenges working with?
- What does being good or very successful at your job mean to you? What are the top three key values you associate with this?
- What are your hot buttons/pet peeves?
- What is your communication and collaboration style? (Describe it.) What feedback have you received on it? Are there communication and collaboration areas that you are trying to improve upon?
- What’s your view on feedback? How do you like to give feedback? How do you prefer someone to give you feedback?
- What specifically can someone do to bring out the best in you? For example, are there any actions to take or words to use?
- When it comes to owning mistakes/errors, what’s the best way for people to come forward and approach you? What’s the best way to apologise to you?
- What do you need when you are too stressed to ask for it? What do you need when you are upset?
- What’s the best way to bring up a subject where we may disagree?
- What is/are your blind spot(s)? What are you working on? What can others do to help you with this?
- How can someone build trust with you quickly? What values do you associate with trustworthiness? What creates distrust with you? How can someone who breaks trust with you gain it back?
Conclusion
Wouldn’t it be great if managers and employees could understand each other’s “hot buttons” and preferences from day one instead of learning the hard way as they work together over months and years?
The “How to Work with Me” manual and process provides that.
It allows managers and team members to connect on a much deeper level.
It creates more predictability, reduces emotional turmoil and builds great teamwork.
It helps managers maximise team performance by not letting communication issues get in the way.
Miscommunications and misunderstandings will still happen.
But team members will have these conversations much sooner after an issue arises, reducing painful conflicts.
* Jason Treu is a chief people officer, keynote speaker, and teamwork expert.
This article first appeared at talentculture.com
