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