Everyone thinks, works, and manages their time and energy exactly as I do. Don’t they?
Of course they don’t but that doesn’t stop managers everywhere from having those unspoken expectations. Unfortunately, they also inevitably get upset when those expectations aren’t met.
I talk to managers...it’s kind of my thing.
I wrote a book based on many of those conversations. What I’ve discovered more than anything else in dysfunctional teams or relationships, is a mismatch of expectations and reality. The easiest way to deal with this is through communication, as early as possible.
If you can gather information before someone joins your team, that is ideal. This way, you don’t set someone up for failure by neglecting to understand where they would best fit.
If you can’t, the next best thing is to do it soon after someone joins the team.
Creating User Guides
Whether you’re putting together a piece of IKEA furniture, trying to figure out a new piece of software, or setting up some new piece of technology, instruction manuals are often your best friend. But unlike so many of the products we buy, people don’t come with instruction manuals. That is, not unless we create them for ourselves.
Everyone is a little different and no one is a mind reader. That is why I recommend all teams create user guides for one another. Every member of the team should do this. This helps to create transparency across the team so each member of the team knows what to expect from each other. These user guides are self-assessed operating manuals for how we like to be treated and how we work best.
For myself, I’ve created an extensive user guide for my peers and team members based on my enneagram profile, my DISC profile, my Myers-Briggs profile, feedback from my peers, and my own descriptions and explanations about my preferences.
Today, I’m going to give you a quick and useful template for each member of your team to create their own user guide. This way, everyone can be on the same page about communication and working styles.
10-Question User Guide
I recommend using the form I’ve created. It will take roughly 6-10 minutes for each person to fill out and will format the answers into a user guide.
Below, I'm going to give you the 10 questions, a brief explanation of why these questions are useful, and then I will share my own answer to these questions to illustrate the point.
- Are you more Introverted or Extroverted?
Having each member of your team answer this question provides useful insight. In particular, this is short-hand for the rest of the team to immediately assume two things based on common usage of the terms.
- In general, is this person high energy or low energy?
- How does this person process information?
While introversion and extroversion are not measures of actual energy level, people often associate extroverts with high energy social people and introverts with being quiet and more reluctant to socialize. At the extremes, this is often the case but on the spectrum it can vary greatly.
Extroverts tend to be people who like to work things out in the moment, in groups. Introverts tend to want time to go off and process information, on their own, in order to come back with a carefully considered solution.
By using "more introverted" rather than "an introvert" this question is used as a way to get a sense of the direction rather than an absolute measure.
Neither is better, and neither of these labels are set in stone or every particularly scientific. However, it does give you a glimpse into someone’s self perception.
FOR EXAMPLE: MEI am more extroverted. I am energized by brainstorming sessions with p