An easy, meaningful exercise to take friction out of team collaboration (How I meet best)

Start a trend. Figure out how you work best, write it down and tell other people. 

Thirteen years ago, I worked with a brilliant organisation called Unboxed. They hired an intern with autism. When he arrived, he shared a powerpoint doc with everyone (literally emailed in the whole company) which explained what he needed to work well. We had never seen anything like it before and it was EXCELLENT.

That example stayed with me and I've used variations on this theme for the last decade to help people think about and ask for what they need.

Teams at work, relationships at home, parenting toddlers - they all have the same foundational elements for example knowing yourself, being open with other and open to others, setting good boundaries and finding ways to meet both parties needs most of the time.

| The components of a good relationship are the same whether we're thinking about our colleagues, our life partners or our toddlers: self-knowledge, openness, listening, boundaries, respect, impulse control, compromise.

Encouraging people to think about and share how they work best ticks all these boxes.

We want people to:

- really think about what helps them make their best contribution and what gets in their way (self-knowledge, openness)

- understand that other people have a different list! (listening)

- collaborate with more sensitivity (think sensitive like a scientific instrument) and design a collaboration ecosystem which works for more people, more of the time (respect, boundaries, impulse control, compromise)

There are so many ways to do this. Here's one I've used a lot.

"How I work best"

One way to explore our preferences is to write them down for others, maybe like this:

I've used variations of this so many times. I like this version because completing a sentence is something most people can do even if they haven't thought about any of this before and it's not too prescriptive (you could make any number of different points using these sentences - it doesn't force you to talk about any particular set of categories).

 
Some nice ways to use this kind of tool.

There are a few ways I have used this kind of preference sharing.

I might just use one myself and every time I share it, I share the template too - for a naturally viral effect. Just literally modelling it. Or i have encouraged leaders to do this (being very careful not to overlay preferences with power - it HAS to be clear it's an invitation for everyone to do the same).

I have used it with new teams or teams that need a reset as an exercise as part of this process, where people can think about sections together and then present themselves back to the group.

I have encouraged organisations to create them and share them as part of their profiles in Teams, Slack or whatever.

You can record and share how you work best in lots of different ways.

You've seen my example above - feel free to copy it.

Here's a nice example from Atlassian which can be a table per person in Confluence 🤓 or a complete Powerpoint presentation with 16 pages 🤯.

Here's Mike Pegg's example of a workshop on sharing working styles which enables you to do something similar as a group.

But avoid these pitfalls.

If you are a person with lots of power (could be social power - people like you, you fit the norm), it's pretty easy to say "I like this, I don't like this". No big risk there.

BUT sharing your preferences when you feel you do not have a lot of power or when you feel your preferences are out of kilter with what is socially acceptable is very different.

For this reason, I like doing an 'It's ok to...' exercise before inviting people to explore and share working styles and preferences.

Here's a nice example from the Government Digital Service.

Go ahead and read more about this exercise in permission and normalisation of diverse preferences.

It sets the stage for what is ok and encourages people to say what they really think.

Keep in mind that what feels empowering to write down in a team workshop could creates feelings of vulnerability if it's suddenly shared more widely.

There is a step by step process - and it's important not to rush people through the steps more quickly than they are ready for.

- Reflect and jot down on your own

- Share with your team

- Share more widely (possibly a more concise version).

You might caveat these exercises with the reminder that this is not everything that defines us and these are not demands. It's simply a way to think about and share with others how we work best.

What if people have competing preferences?

Just like working across different timezones creates some logistical challenges for collaboration, it's normal that team members will have styles which conflict with each other.

This is an inevitable consequence of bringing together cognitively diverse teams - and reaping all the benefits this brings.

For example, it could be that:

- one person needs to keep getting up and down or multi-tasking in meetings and everyone else finds that massively distracting

- some people like dropping by desks for a quick chat about something pressing - but others find this disconcerting and distracting

- some of the team love working out loud together in the moment in meetings - it's how they do their best thinking. But for others, they can't contribute well if they haven't had a chance to consume the information and think in advance.

None of these are easy to solve, but surfacing them is the first step. There may be some modifications (e.g. "DM me first if you want to pop by my desk and give me a one liner about your question") or some compromise ("We need you to stay the room if you can but let's take a quick break every 30mins in any longer meetings").

Preferences are not demands. Like values, they are for positive use - and never to berate, punish or unfairly restrict someone else.

You will need to use this tool sensitively (like everything in life!).