I’m newly managing more people at work so I pulled out a document I created last year called “Working with Natalie” to share with my reports. Our leadership team wrote these about ourselves as a way to acclimate a new director to our working styles, as well as experiment with this format to give to new hires so they can get to know their manager (and prepare a document for their manager to get to know them in return).
My Working-With-Me document covers:
- My Meyers-Briggs personality type (INFJ) & learning style (Visual/Reader)
- My main priorities at work
- Communication style and preferences / what I consider urgent
- Feedback protocol
- Meetings– timing, ownership, don’t do other work during them, etc
- Principles & Expectations — as in living our values, personal responsibility, asking for help, bringing proposed solutions with problems, etc
- My own challenges — things I’m not so good at
- My triggers — Ex: Apathy or not respecting the office space
- Nuance & Errata — where I’ve included notes on a couple of lessons learned and apologize that I swear sometimes and get pretty competitive, especially with Harry Potter trivia
If you’re working with others I recommend going through a version of this exercise. A quick google search on “working with me template” will give you some solid examples on different ways to approach this and build out even more robust user guides than mine. It’s not just for manager-employee either. As I mentioned, I first put together for my peers to understand my work style and had all of theirs as a reference too.
This past year I adapted this as part of our Leadership Development Program so participants create this document for themselves during the first week. Revisiting it now I wonder if I shouldn’t have all new hires go through this exercise during onboarding.
While nothing beats having face-to-face conversations and truly getting to know each other’s work styles, a user-guide can be a great starting point. Or at least, I hope people take it in that spirit and not as a rigid structure or excuse to behave just how I want to. Human beings are not processes to be followed. But understanding the best context to deliver difficult feedback before the time comes to deliver it can make a significant difference.
With Love,
Natalie