As organizational complexity increases, firms are looking to leverage individual's expertise together as a team. Teams are an interdependent group of individuals working towards a shared goal, in order to solve challenging problems. Teaming has resulted in an increasing reliance on high functioning teams to improve productivity, client experience and raise the quality of work, leading to overall organizational success. But also, good teaming practice increases employee satisfaction and engagement, making the design and implementation of teaming practices a priority in enabling organizational culture.
Teaming is Hard.
Teams are a fundamental part of an organization's well-being, placing a high value on team design, health and learning to elevate the business. In Patrick Lencioni's popular book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, he explains that it's “Not finance. Not strategy. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage both because it is so powerful and rare.” He also notes “that teams, because they are made up of imperfect beings, are inherently dysfunctional”. This creates subtle misunderstandings and miscommunications that result in unspoken relationship-based conflict, which are extremely costly to organizations.
But, let's be honest, there is no magic solution to the challenge of teaming. Instead, high-functioning teams are a result of a series of habits and practices that are deployed effectively within a team's life cycle. One of those practices is a user manual, a cheat sheet meant to inform teammates of our professional preferences; directions on “how to work with me”. This is usually curated at the beginning of a team's life cycle but can be used as a reference source throughout.
User Manuals
We are all different. We are born with unique dispositions. We grow up in varied environments. We have different experiences. We value distinct goals. This means, as professionals, we have different preferences for thinking, communication and working styles; expectations and needs for the project and our teammates. Yet, most of the time we assume our teammates should just figure it out, failing to take the time to make these critical factors known to our teammates. Imagine buying a household item and learning there is no instruction manual included - now that is going to be a frustrating night!
A User Manual is a written document that acts as a “how-to” for our teammates so they understand these preferences, which enables teams to adapt their processes based on the needs of the individuals and the collective whole. More specifically usual manuals help teams:
Cultivate shared language
Shared language is important for high-functioning teams. By challenging individuals to select words that resonate with themselves, you are also helping your teammates find the right, non-triggering, words to use when communicating stylistic needs.
Increase awareness of self
A user manual doesn’t just benefit your teammates, but individuals can actually learn from writing and adapting their own user manual over time. By making these preferences explicit it helps individuals think deeply about their styles, needs and expectations and how this might impact their teammates.
Enable perspective-taking
Reading user manuals helps teammates understand each other's motivations and help see things from a teammate's vantage point, creating empathy by decreasing the context gap between yourself and the other person. Studies show that perspective-taking strengthens social bonds and increases feelings of trust. This also helps teammates adapt to their teammates, ultimately meeting each other where they are.
Provide data and insight into team dynamics
Teams now have data, which can help the team develop insights into possible team dynamic scenarios. These insights can be developed through a facilitated discussion that focuses on how our ways of working as individuals affect our ways of working as a team; how might similarities and differences positively and negatively affect team dynamics. A user manual aids in this discussion because, again, it gives neutral language for the team to use when discussing personal tendencies, decreasing defensiveness and increasing open-mindedness.
... is time effective as individuals are able to create and review on their own time, reuse and adapt versions of user manuals for multiple team projects.
Creating your User Manual
There is no one size fits all method of creating a user manual that should be adopted across all teams and organizations. Instead user manuals can be based on team and project design or organizational priorities. But at the end of the day, a great user manual is more about individuals taking the time to think deeply and translate those thoughts into tangible preferences that aid their teammates. In addition, teams should read other user manuals with the idea of taking another perspective and an open mind.
Below are sample questions that can be used when creating a user manual:
Describe your communication and collaboration style?
What is your view on feedback? How do you prefer to receive feedback? How do you prefer to offer feedback?
What are you working on? What can others do to help you with this?
What are your hot buttons/pet peeves?
What are your perceived strengths, tendencies, and assessment results that are meaningful and relevant for your team to know?
User manuals are meant to increase team productivity and team engagement. However, user manuals alone don’t solve team problems. Instead, user manuals are just one practice an organization can roll out that might guide teams investment in team dynamics and should be used alongside other teaming best practices.
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