Advice a mentor once gave me:
- Work relationships have a massive impact on your happiness and your ability to do you job.
- Both people have to take responsibility for co-creating the relationship.
CO-CREATING THE RELATIONSHIP 🤯
Man I love that.
So, I created a relationship ritual. At the start of every new and important relationship, I’d run a “How We Work” session.
What’s a “How We Work”?
A conversation (usually 60-90mins) dedicated entirely to communicating about how you’re going to communicate.
- So much of our experience with people comes down to dozens of micro-interactions each day.
- Before you get into the fray of the work itself, talk about how you’re going to do the work.
- Big personality differences means both people need to flex.
- Small annoyances can end up totally derailing things.
Who should I do one with?
Anyone you interact with often (eg daily/weekly) where the relationship significantly impacts the way you do your job. Specifically:
- VIP relationships (eg manager, important coworkers, key cross-functional stakeholders)
- People on priority projects (eg agencies, external partners).
When should I do it?
Ideally when you’re kicking things off, but you can also use it to reset a relationship and get it back on track if things get wonky. Try saying:
- New relationship:“Something I like to do when I start working with people is dedicate a whole meeting to communicating about how we communicate — would you be up for that?”
- Existing relationship:“I’m working on the way I collaborate with people. There’s something I’ve been looking at called a “How We Work” session where we dedicate a whole meeting to talking about how we work (styles, preferences, channels) instead of talking about the work itself. Would you be up for that?
How to run a “How We Work”
I’ve been obsessed with optimising the format, researching how experts do it. Different for different contexts, but this structure is my fav so far (credit to this award-winning, best-selling expert).
- Get their buy-in to do it
- Expand and adapt the big questions below
- Share the questions ahead of time so they can prep (and you should too!)
1. “What’s your best?”
Tell me about you at your best: What conditions are in place? When do you feel in flow? What gives you energy? How do you like to be recognised?
👉🏼 This uncovers their strengths and how they see themselves contributing to the team/project.
2. “How do you like to work?”
Go deep on the details. Different for every contexts but for eg:
- Work style (want the details / don’t want the details, action-oriented / idea-oriented etc)
- Channels & use cases (which to use for what - chat, email, meeting, desk chat etc)
- Day/week planning (best time for different things - meetings vs focus time etc)
- How do you want me to: Keep you updated on projects? Get in touch if I need an urgent response? Format a specific document etc.
👉🏼 Reveals their like/dislikes, helps you avoid misunderstandings and friction.
3. “What do you value in a report/teammate/partner?”
Tell me about some of your favourite people to work with — what do you like about the way they work?
👉🏼 Helps you understand what they expect from people and how to vibe.
4. “What don’t you value in report/teammate/partner?”
Tell about the stuff that hasn’t worked for you (without naming names): What are the behaviours that frustrate, annoy, disappoint you? What makes your life hard?
👉🏼 Uncovers their pain points, helps you know what not to do
5. “How should we fix it when things go wrong?”
How should we disagree with each other? How should we raise problems? How should we give each other feedback? What should we do if the vibe just gets a bit weird?
👉🏼 Makes it sooooo much easier to deal when things go wrong (and they will).