Want to shortcut the small talk and learning-by-experience to create a better working team? Ever wished you could explain a little more about what you need and why? Or understand more clearly why your approach or interactions aren’t working as well as you hoped? Every time a new person joins your team or company . . you spend a significant a mountof time working each other out. You might do a face to face rookie chat, you might even get the chance to have a beer with them, but the reality is, there will be ups and downs. There will be confusion, miscommunication, unmet expectations and disappointment. After all, we're only human.
There has to be a better way.
You might have heard of a Tour Rider where rock stars get to set the criteria for their performance. There’s usually a technical part (specifying mics or speakers) and a hospitality part (where the story of Van Halen’s infamous request to have no brownm&ms came from).Well the Workplace Rider is a little different. It’s less about satisfying the prima donna, and more about moving beyond the prima facie. It’s a document that tells people how best to work with you. If you think about it; you get more instructions with your new washing machine than you do with a human in your team. Weird no?
Your Workplace Rider tells people about your role and the way you work best. How you generally tend to interact and what helps you to work most effectively. It’s a document which outlines what people can expect from you and how you approach things. This way people have a head start in developing an effective working relationship with you rather than learning in the moment by experience. We spend more time at work than we do with our families, yet we spend little time really understanding and connecting with them beyond the usual work outings.
The WorkPlace Rider helps people learn to adapt to one another by offering an explicit description of your personal values and how you work best with others. This shortens the learning curve for new people and helps everyone avoid misunderstandings and create a shared team culture more swiftly.
It should be refreshed briefly every year and provides a pivotal point for self-reflection and generous conversation. The process is also an opportunity to get honest feedback from others. Once you have a draft, share it with your team and incorporate their feedback. This means you’ll have to listen to some generous feed backthat you may not want to hear but need to hear. After all, leadership is a practice . . not a position.
The WorkPlace Rider demands that you really know yourself. It requires you to reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, what makes you tick, how you interact and respond with others around you do, and what helps you perform at your peak.
