Speaker 1: Collaboration can sometimes be a pretty volatile part of work.
Speaker 1: Working alongside great people can make even the most mind
Speaker 1: numbingly boring tasks feel like pure play. But when you
Speaker 1: don't gel with a particular team, even a passion project
Speaker 1: can become a drag. So how do you make sure
Speaker 1: you're collaborating with the right people and collaborating in the
Speaker 1: right way. Author and coaching expert Michael Bungay Standia wants
Speaker 1: you to have these conversations before you even start working
Speaker 1: with a new collaborator, before any project begins. He recommends
Speaker 1: co writing and Operating Manual, a set of processes and
Speaker 1: guidelines for collaborating. So what are the most important questions
Speaker 1: to ask when you're thinking of working with someone? My
Speaker 1: name is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 1: the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is
Speaker 1: how I work, a show about how to help you
Speaker 1: do your best work. On today's My Favorite Tip episode,
Speaker 1: we go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In
Speaker 1: today's show, I speak with Michael Bungay Stania and we
Speaker 1: start with what would happen if you started working with
Speaker 1: Michael tomorrow, because there is a very specific process that
Speaker 1: he would take you through.
Speaker 2: I call it building our operating Manual. So the origin
Speaker 2: of this comes from a guy called Peter Block, who
Speaker 2: if you're in the world of kind of organizational change
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, you may have heard his name,
Speaker 2: and he talks about something called a social contract. And
Speaker 2: the bottom line is it's good to talk about how
Speaker 2: we're going to work together before we talk about what
Speaker 2: we're going to work on together. So this is a
Speaker 2: conversation that's helpful if you're you know, you have somebody
Speaker 2: new coming on your tea where you start working with
Speaker 2: a vendor or a contractor or anybody. Really you got
Speaker 2: a relationship where you like, we want this to be
Speaker 2: really good. The temptation is always to go, let's talk
Speaker 2: about the project, what needs to be built, what are
Speaker 2: we starting, what are our KPIs, and what are our
Speaker 2: c's or OCR or whatever, And that pressure to an
Speaker 2: excitement to get stuff done often kind of sweeps you
Speaker 2: into that type of conversation and you're in the honeymoon
Speaker 2: of this relationship with this new person, just like you're
Speaker 2: awesome and I'm awesome. And we're awesome, this project awesome.
Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong? And the thing is, something
Speaker 2: will go wrong everythingcause it always goes wrong. It always
Speaker 2: goes off the rails a little bit. So I'm really
Speaker 2: enamored and trying and have the discipline to have a
Speaker 2: conversation about let's let's talk about our operating manual. And
Speaker 2: I've just got a few questions or and I don't
Speaker 2: ask all of them all the time, but a few
Speaker 2: questions that I feel like help us having a conversation
Speaker 2: to go. Let me tell you how to get the
Speaker 2: best out of me, and I want you to tell
Speaker 2: me how to get the best out of you. So
Speaker 2: I'll say things like, you know, so, Amantha, when you've
Speaker 2: worked with somebody like me before in a project like
Speaker 2: this and it's gone really well, tell me what happened,
Speaker 2: what did you do, and what did the other person do?
Speaker 2: And then I'll answer the question myself. You know, when
Speaker 2: I worked on somebody like you and Mantha on a
Speaker 2: project like this and it went really well, here's some
Speaker 2: of the stuff that happened, And I'll go and when
Speaker 2: you've worked with somebody like me on a project that's
Speaker 2: kind of been a bit of a disaster or just
Speaker 2: kind of mediocre. What happened? You know, what did you do?
Speaker 2: And what did they do? And we're building up understanding
Speaker 2: about one of the contexts in which we flourish and
Speaker 2: one of the contexts in which we struggle. You know,
Speaker 2: a great one is, and this is a question directly
Speaker 2: from Peter Block, how do you feel about the amount
Speaker 2: of power you have in this relationship? That's a that's
Speaker 2: a really hard question to ask. It's it always takes
Speaker 2: people are back, but it's it's it's really good at
Speaker 2: kind of going. How who has control here? And how
Speaker 2: do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: I'll give you one one more question and then we
Speaker 2: can we can ask me about it if you want. Another.
Speaker 2: One is when things go badly wrong or go off
Speaker 2: the rails a little bit, because they always do, what's
Speaker 2: your unilateral act? How do you respond? And you know
Speaker 2: I can always tell people, look, I'm not that great
Speaker 2: a conflict, So you'll move into you'll just stop hearing
Speaker 2: from me, and and this is by and this is
Speaker 2: the way to pull me out of that. So we
Speaker 2: actually have a conversation about this is what I look
Speaker 2: like when I'm behaving badly or under stress, and here's
Speaker 2: how you can manage me best to get me out
Speaker 2: of that doom loop. And I'll get them to tell
Speaker 2: me the same.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So at invent here we have a
Speaker 1: very similar strategy. Whenever we have a new starter on
Speaker 1: the team, we get the and completing We call it
Speaker 1: the OP on the one page operating Manual. And yeah,
Speaker 1: for us, the way we think about it, it's like
Speaker 1: software hardware. All that stuff comes with a manual about
Speaker 1: how to use it. But I mean humans are far
Speaker 1: more complex, but we don't come with a manual, and
Speaker 1: so we try to create one. So I'm really interested
Speaker 1: in those questions that you ask. Something else that we
Speaker 1: ask is what are your pief points? Like what are
Speaker 1: the things that just really frustrate you? And we find
Speaker 1: we get some interesting answers. What do you do though, if, like,
Speaker 1: if you're working with someone and maybe there like their
Speaker 1: insight into themselves and particularly you know, their shadow side
Speaker 1: their weaknesses is not that good? How do you draw
Speaker 1: those responses out more effectively?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I try and do it in the
Speaker 2: moment because for me, it is the process of having
Speaker 2: gone through this allows us to come back and have
Speaker 2: this conversation again. And so more important to me than
Speaker 2: the answers is the fact that I've said this, by
Speaker 2: the way, we have these type of conversations when we
Speaker 2: work together.
Speaker 1: So would you then have those conversations at regular intervals,
Speaker 1: like where you're not talking about the project and the
Speaker 1: work per se, but you're talking about the relationship and
Speaker 1: all the time relational things really all the.
Speaker 2: Time, like I would say with you know, on my
Speaker 2: immediate team. So I kind of am part of two
Speaker 2: companies at the moment. I own a training company that's
Speaker 2: run by a CEO and I talked to her monthly
Speaker 2: at but formerly on her performance quarterly. And then I
Speaker 2: have a little small kind of startup company where I
Speaker 2: have one employee, and with Ainslie every six weeks we'll
Speaker 2: have a conversation around how's this going? And it's not
Speaker 2: about the work, it's about how is it going for
Speaker 2: you as a human being? How has it going for
Speaker 2: me as the person who's your nominal boss. What do
Speaker 2: we need to do differently to do that? One of
Speaker 2: the questions that both with Shannon, who's the CEO of
Speaker 2: Boxer Crayons, and Ainsley, who is kind of had she
Speaker 2: works at MBS dot works. One of the questions that
Speaker 2: is most powerful in this is what needs to be
Speaker 2: said that hasn't yet been said, because that just creates
Speaker 2: space for us to go, Ah, you know that thing
Speaker 2: that's hard to talk about, or I've been looking for
Speaker 2: the moment to sneak it into the conversation and I
Speaker 2: haven't quite figured out how to say it because it's
Speaker 2: a bit confronting to me or a bit confronting to
Speaker 2: you or whatever. What needs to be said that hasn't
Speaker 2: yet been said is just a permission to lay down
Speaker 2: the the the as yet unspoken, and that is a
Speaker 2: great cleanser and builder of resilience into into the relationships.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm gonna take that one.
Speaker 2: That I stole it from somebody else I can't remember who,
Speaker 2: so steal away because it is it is a beauty.
Speaker 2: And on another note, amount I end my podcast at
Speaker 2: the moment that's the final question. I always ask people
Speaker 2: and it's great. Sometimes people go I got nothing, some
Speaker 2: people At times people go, that was a good conversation,
Speaker 2: thank you, And some people go, here's the thing I
Speaker 2: really wanted to tell you. I'm like brilliant and we'll
Speaker 2: have a bit more of a chat.
Speaker 1: I am such a fan of this process. At Inventium,
Speaker 1: our one page operating manual has become a bit of
Speaker 1: a staple and it has massively fast tracked getting to
Speaker 1: know new starters. If you would like to download the
Speaker 1: template that we used, you can visit the Inventium Labs
Speaker 1: page which I have linked to in the show notes,
Speaker 1: and you can find it there. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: more tips to improve the way that you work, I
Speaker 1: write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things
Speaker 1: that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging from
Speaker 1: software and gadgets that I'm loving through the interesting research findings.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for that at how I Work
Speaker 1: That's how I Work dot co. How I Work is
Speaker 1: produced by Inventing with production support from dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: And thank you to Matt Nimba who does the audio
Speaker 1: mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much
Speaker 1: better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.