We often hear new parents say that their baby should come with a manual—a guidebook on how to deal with this tiny, unknown human. Wouldn’t that be easier, to know how to best support someone if that person can’t communicate their needs? Now let’s apply this thinking to an office team. In this melting pot of personalities and conflicting work styles, people might not be so quick to communicate what they personally need to succeed. But unlike babies, they are capable of communicating it.

What if, as a fun and informative activity, employees created their own quick-start user guides? What makes them tick, and how can others work with them to produce the best results? This level of honest communication takes the guesswork out of your team’s work styles, improves collaboration and effectiveness, and may dampen the shock of being put on a project with a serial procrastinator.

• What information would you include? What would you like to quickly communicate about your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, and your individual and team work styles? Sit down to really assess yourself: how you like to communicate, make decisions, collaborate, and so on. You may look to your boss or to past personality assessments or performance reviews for help. Be honest with yourself! You may like to think you catch every detail, when in reality you may need people to remind you of the nuances.
• Who are you writing this for? You’re writing a roadmap to help others work better with you, so be sure you understand your audience. You probably have insight into the ways your team could function better. If your team is big on copying everyone on every email, but the unnecessary messages drive you crazy, you might say, “I communicate best through email. I like to receive email that has information I need to know or act on. I appreciate people who read the whole email thread before responding.”
• Are you prepared to work with others’ manuals? The goal of user guides is to improve communication and streamline team operations. So if you’re that person who likes to communicate only what people need to know or act on, but Julie’s manual says she likes to be included on everything that happens with the team, are you willing to include Julie on the mundane messages, if only to entertain what you see as rampant narcissism?
• Can you commit to completing and regularly updating your manual? You probably don’t send anything by fax anymore. Many people have even moved past email! So if you always prefer phone calls, or if you don’t mind business texts at 5:45 in the morning, be sure to update your manual as technology changes and as your preferences change—as you change! You will also want to review your manual to make sure it is achieving the goals you’d hoped for.

Employee quick-start guides require a little time and a lot of self-awareness, but in the end, you’ll have a clear path to improving your team’s communication and working better together.