Making the Best of Personal User Manuals
A little way to create psychological safety & trust, combat bias, and build bonds.
After a recent talk at Industry New York, several audience members asked for my personal user manual template. Context: I mentioned this as I tackled the subject of authority bias, noting that these manuals help others understand how you communicate and make decisions, among other things.
Authority bias is tricky, because it feels like you’d be defying someone in a higher seat if you don’t agree with their suggestion or ask. Heck it feels like you’re defying them by just mentioning you’d like to discuss their idea further. This often leads to anxiety and overthinking, or short-sighted decisions. Being able to openly communicate and explain the why at all times is critical when we’re all moving so quickly, trying to stay ahead, and trying to execute on the right things. This is why user manuals are important, so those around you are able to understand how you think, make decisions, and communicate best while you’re all moving at high speed.
Overall, there are many benefits to personal user manuals, for both teams and for just you and your boss or direct report. Once you start doing them, you don’t want to not do them when you take on a new role or team, or add new team members.
My experience with user manuals:
They set the tone for collaboration and open dialogue across team members. As a manager you are able to see the interactions during readouts of the manual across your directs, and can tell which individuals will play well with one another as it relates to strengths and areas of improvement.
The conversation that happens when an individual goes through their manual is just as important (maybe even more important) than the manual itself. This is true for both 1:1 and group settings.
They make vulnerability comfortable. We each have to help people understand us all around to do well as a unit. This doesn’t ask too much, and you put into it what you feel is necessary to help others partner well with you. There has not been one time I’ve not had to schedule another meeting so we could finish everyone’s user manual. It creates so much psychological safety.
They open the door for others to help you. I once saw one of my PMs speak up during a meeting where one of my other PMs was being talked over. She previously mentioned in the conversation while we reviewed her manual that she has a hard time in meetings when colleagues speak over her. She said she never has the courage to ask politely for the floor and it’s held her back. When she thanked him after the meeting, he told her he remembered her user manual readout and wanted to help. (Proud manager moment for me, let me tell you.)
I cannot recall the last time I did not have my team do user manuals, especially as they form and storm. The earlier you get your team into this habit, the better. This is especially relevant when you’re standing up new teams like Product Operations, Research, and those types of roles we see emerge as companies scale.
I also cannot recall a manager who did not care to read my user manual. If I ever do encounter one, I’m sure that moment will tell me much of what I need to know.
I have had the privilege of seeing a CEO do the exercise and make his user manual public to the entire company. This exercise and asset is not limited to non-execs. In fact, it was driven off of interviews with execs. The higher up it’s embraced, the wider impact it will have across a company.
I alluded to this above, but make space for this. Put the time on the calendar, and ensure you do a routine revisit as your team grows or changes.
You can download my template of the manual for free here. This is a combination of the areas I’ve seen work best throughout my career so far, and I did not create this concept. Read further to see who gets credit for this awesome tool. Don’t be alarmed if I make an update of two one of these days as I learn. That being said, you choose what works best for your team, direct report, or boss based on your situation.
If you want to read more about user manuals, check these links out:
Adam Bryant’s article - “What if you had to write a user manual about your leadership style?” - Bryant is credited for bringing this exercise to the forefront after interviewing two execs and asking, what if we all did this?
Atlassian Team Playbook - My User Manual
And if you want to check out some of the biases that can be combatted through a bit of sharing through a user manual exercise, Pendo’s done an awesome job of pulling them together here.
Hope this is helpful to you and your teams. Feel free to email me at christine@theproductheart.com with suggestions on what else has worked for you if you’ve used a user manual in the past.