The Secret to Building Great Teams: Create User Manuals [My article in Talent & Culture Magazine]

The Secret to Building Great Teams: Create User Manuals
The Secret to Building Great Teams: Create User Manuals [Talent & Culture Magazine]

I came across a dozen or so exceptional managers that used different versions of “user manuals” or “how-to-work-with-me-manuals.” They told me they were game-changers for productivity, performance, communication, and teamwork. They minimized and eliminated misunderstandings, biases and much more. What are they? Read on and learn!

Julie Zhou mentioned in her fantastic book, The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks at You.

In what scenarios would you use them?

  • Onboard new employees with teams
  • Build much better relationships and teamwork on existing teams
  • Use with people you would work within different groups
  • Use in working groups
  • Use during mergers and acquisitions
  • Use in conflict resolution
  • And many more scenarios!

Here is an excerpt from the article that discusses the strategy and how to do them:

“Learning how best to work with others is a huge challenge that often derails and stalls organizations. Over many years I’ve seen tremendously talented and productive teams struggle because of subtle misunderstandings, miscommunications and unspoken conflicts. Most business failures stem from these issues.

Leaders often talk about the importance of teamwork, but they rarely say exactly how to do it.

Here’s one game-changing step your organization and/or team can take: implementing a “How to Work With Me” manual and process. It’s a detailed instruction road map on individual preferences for areas such as communication, trust and pet peeves. It sets clear expectations on how to interact without trying to guess or infer what the other person means. It allows people to be authentic without being misunderstood.

It also instantly increases trust and team chemistry. You’ll see direct bottom-line benefits such as increased performance and fewer conflicts and miscommunications.

Organizations such as StripeDropboxNorselab and BetterCloud and teams at FacebookAmazon and Google are already using this approach and seeing an immense impact.

Guessing What People Want Is Not Communication

No matter how well we think we read people, everyone could use some help. None of us are perfect at it. But we can be much, much better.

We all have different personalities, communication styles, expectations and needs. We’ve been shaped by different experiences and histories. That creates challenging dynamics when you bring together leaders, managers and employees and expect them to accomplish difficult goals.

Organizations throw people together in teams and expect them to “magically” figure out each other’s personalities, preferences and hot buttons through guesswork, mind reading and trial-and-error. It would be similar to having to assemble IKEA’s most complicated piece of furniture without the instructions.

People often end up trying to analyze and predict what others like, hate, need and want, instead of asking them directly. This results in a rollercoaster ride of confusion, miscommunication, misunderstandings, unmet expectations, anxiety, fear and disappointment.

Despite all our best intentions, this process and environment is primed for broken trust, poor relationships and underperforming teams.

Social Wealth Book Review on Building Great Business Relationships [From Amazon]

“This book is one of the best-kept secrets I’ve come across in a REALLY long time! There is are so many tips for conversations and networking skills in today’s society. If you can master what Jason talks about in this book, you’ll definitely build long-term wealth! Many other reviewers have compared this to “How to Win Friends & Influence People” and I cannot agree more. Buy two copies and give one to someone in your network.”

It’s always great to read a review from someone you don’t know about the positive impact Social Wealth had on them. I’ve been fortunate to have more than 125+ five-star reviews on the book. If you are looking to build deeper, more meaningful business relationships (either in your company or through business networking), you may want to consider checking it out. It works for introverts and shy people just as well as extroverts.

Best Things in the Workplace Are Free – Connection

“Best Things in Life Are Free.” That’s the classic song in MadMen when Burt Cooper dies. It’s signifies the #1 asset and “secret sauce” that leaders typically overlook. 

People value and are starving for true connection, complete trust, & teamwork with people who deeply care. 

It’s that emotional bond that enables us to accomplish and create the seemingly impossible. 

It’s also what brings the very best out of us individually and collectively. 

People after the fact point to success as the stock price, profit, sales, etc. But that completely misses the mark. That’s the effect, not the cause. 

The gold is in first creating the unbreakable foundation for “the together team.” It’s not to get distracted by process, strategy, etc. Because then leaders make lack of time excuses why they built the foundation on sand. We know what happens over time when they do (and the huge financial cost and emotional turmoil for poor teamwork).

Coco Chanel said, “The best things in life are free. The second-best things are very, very expensive.”

When leaders and managers behaviors and actions prioritize the business over the team, it requires them to pay a very expensive price. 

Here’s the video from MadMen that’s worth a watch: https://lnkd.in/e8gD2HF

Dilemma of Choosing Profits over Principles

One of the most difficult decisions leaders and managers have to make is choosing principles (and values) over profits. 

It’s rarely an easy choice nor is it black/white. 

Lately, I’ve encountered several client situations where this choice had to be made over the past two weeks

1) The top salesperson didn’t feel like they had to follow the same rules as others. They were putting the company at risk with their actions. The challenge was the individual was bringing in a significant amount of revenue and had excellent relationships with clients. It came down to the company making a decision on money versus behavior. 

2) Leader in the company treated a large team pretty poorly. But they were getting excellent KPIs and results. The leader didn’t want to change so the company was at a crossroads on what to do.

It may seem clear cut on what to do, but consider this. First, companies have duties to pay employees (who have families), serve their customers and other obligations. Second, principles are not always valued/shared unanimously. The definitions, understandings, and lines aren’t always clear. 

But prioritizing profits can lead a company, executives, and managers to forget, push aside or change their principles. Those choices lead to negative and very expensive consequences.

Social Wealth was Named as a Top Business Relationship Book


It’s always exciting when someone recognizes your work. Writing a book was one of the most difficult and time consuming things I’ve ever done. Here is what they wrote about Social Wealth (Sold more than 60,000 copies and 130+ five star reviews):

Background on the list:

Relationships can be tricky things. One minute they can be going great, and the next minute everything seems to be going wrong.

The relationship books listed below are amongst the most popular, best rated and best reviewed books on relationships available.

https://www.developgoodhabits.com/best-relationship-books/
This book explores the habits and secrets of people who are successful in all areas of their lives, including relationships. When one is able to have social wealth, they are more likely to be successful. Everything we do in our lives incorporates different people in some way. No one gets to where they want to be alone, with no help.

As you are developing your relationships throughout life, you need to nurture them so they can work for you. Try to get connected to people who can help you achieve your goals.

Social Wealth provides a blueprint of the tips that people need to become successful in their fields. No one is born knowing how to do their job. Learned skills can only be gained while one is on the job and learning how a company really works.

This is a great book for people who want to be social in their business endeavors, but need some direction. This guide provides readers with a high-quality strategy that is built on skills and confidence about learning new things.

This book is written clearly and is easy to understand. The concepts are easy to grasp, and the reasoning behind them is clear. Readers have also found the step-by-step instructions to be helpful

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