Six moments where Manual of Me? can help your people work better together.

Modern increasingly demands collaboration across departments, locations, and organisations. This can make alignment, empathy and inclusivity challenging. Manual of Me? is a simple yet powerful tool to give teams the opportunity to start on the same page.

What is a Manual of Me?

A Manual of Me is a document where individuals share information about themselves that is relevant to working together effectively - such as preferred communication styles, frustrations, motivations, work habits and values. Learn more about the concept here.

But a Manual of Me isn't a 'write it once and never use it again' form - it can be powerful in many different moments and situations where accelerating people getting to know each other offers value.

Here are just six example situations where Manuals of Me can help:

Onboarding New Employees

Asking new team members to complete their own Manual of Me, and sharing your existing peoples' Manual of Me can help everyone get up to speed.

They gain insight into experienced coworkers’ preferences and differences when collaborating. This allows new employees to integrate more smoothly.

They will be knowledgeable about topics to avoid, best ways to communicate, and each person’s working style.

Don't make the mistake of simply sharing documents though - use them as the basis for people coming together and having better conversations. Manual of Me isn't about removing connection, but augmenting it!

Remote Work

With remote employees, building strong relationships can be challenging. Manual of Me can help bridge this gap by providing visibility into how team members operate day-to-day, and surface the unspoken or unvisible.

Whether it is knowing Jane likes to brainstorm out loud but Alex needs quiet time to process ideas, or that Bill works best in the morning while Jade is most productive at night, Manual of Me can give hidden insights.

Use the Manual of Me to highlight similarities and differences, and spark conversations about how to mitigate against potential conflicts or challenges.

Cross-Functional Projects

Increasingly project teams are made up from individuals from across multiple departments from within an organisation - indeed they'll often include people from outside of the business too.

When teams work cross-functionally, they risk misalignment due to different perspectives, objectives and ways of communicating and working.

Using the Manual of Me framework, whether it be some exploration exercises, co-creating Manuals of Me or even sharing existing team Manual of We can surface insights on where things will work well, and where you might need to put additional support in place to ensure good collaboration.

Working with External Partners

Whilst you might have had the benefit of getting to know your colleagues, when you're bringing external partners in to collaborate - especially those on short-term contracts, understanding how they work, and sharing how you work, rapidly, is essential to project success.

Using the Manual of Me framework to capture and share essential ways of working for key individuals and teams is a way to accelerate better work with partners.

Team Offsites / Onsites

As we're increasingly working remotely and spend less and less 'face time' together, exercises and techniques from the Manual of Me can be used to structure valuable connection time for team retreats and get-togethers.

Team members could agree questions they'd like to ask, answer or explore together. Team leaders could pre-select questions and themes they'd like to help their people unpack. Or use questions which are less about work, and more about the people you work with - their interests, motivations and things going on outside the office.

We've worked with countless businesses where Manual of Me has helped their teams come together more effectively during company days.

Performance Reviews

Managers often conduct performance reviews generically, but they can be more productive by incorporating team members’ Manual of Me as a framework for building upon.

Understanding each individual’s style, motivations, and goals enables the manager to provide tailored coaching and feedback - as well as asking where they can offer or provide better support.

Reviews also present the perfect opportunity for employees to share updated insights for their manual that could strengthen their work moving forward.

These are just a small handful of opportunities where Manual of Me can help your people work better together.

The versatility to use manuals across so many situations makes it a staple tool that should be in every team's toolkit.

Consider implementing Manual of Me? at your organisation to see improved collaboration, performance, and culture.

Work with us to find out how you can benefit from Manual of Me in your teams.