Tell others how to interact with you. I use a readme: "How to work with me" visible to everyone in our company Slack. And I love it when others in the company have the same, I can adapt to their preferred way of working. I can show them I care. My Readme is a simple Notion page with 4 sections: "A 3-point summary" If they want to read everything, here's what I care about most. (i.e. Direct feedback, how to book in my calendar, I don't care about small talk, etc.) "Things I care about" Stuff I care about in my life, who I am. (I.e. I love fun bets, teaching, and learning. Some of my hobbies and how growing others gives me a lot of meaning in my life) "How to interact with me" The way to approach me with feedback and how to act if they feel I messed up. Things that make me difficult without meaning harm and how to handle it. (i.e. I interrupt people often without noticing it, I'm sometimes overbearing, etc.) "Calendar Interactions" A more detailed section on how I like calendar appointments. Calendar Meeting examples etc. (i.e. "Always provide a concrete description that makes me also understand in a couple of weeks") We can normalize stuff like this as leaders, partners, and peers. People appreciate it and it takes out a lot of uncertainty when interacting with people. Do you read me? #managementstyle #leadership #careeradvice
This is a brilliant notion, Leah. How is it working for you so far?
I wrote a "how to work with me" roughly following this template by Claire Hughes Johnson: https://growth.eladgil.com/book/the-role-of-the-ceo/insights-working-with-claire/
This is a great idea! I have a link to my OKRs to show the rest of the teams my key drivers for the quarter but having a Readme is very clever. Leah Tharin do you have any specific cases where the readme made a difference when working with your colleagues?
Would you be open to sharing the Notion doc?
Great idea Leah - useful for weird people like you 😜
Do people look this up, and take the time to read it? Do you promote that your readme exists? How do you go from doc to an actual conversation with people about mutual preferences?
As an exceedingly thick-skinned and easy-going person, I tend to presume other people mean well, let them interact with me however they prefer and give them the benefit of the doubt. When I get hurt or offended, it's usually because I misunderstood or allowed something to get to me. Because I react to my interpretation of external events, not the external events themselves. Over time we will come to know one another organically through our interactions and make adjustments accordingly. It would be unreasonable to burden other people with managing my emotions to which they are not privy.
Love it. It's handy, it tells a lot about people who did care to notice the link.
I love that idea! 🙌🏻 I learned about this at my university (Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences ) - we had it there in the curriculum. I also added mine visible for anyone at Novaheal. Did you get other people to do the same at your company? ☺️
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2yYes to clear expectation setting. Wonder what would happen though if I need to invite two heads-of to a meeting and their "how to work with me Readmes" have a merge conflict.