Why you need a personal user manual & how to make one (2024)

Have you ever wished people understood you a bit better right from the start? A personal user manual might be just what you need whether you’re joining a new organisation or just a new team.

Personal user manuals outline your personality, communication style, and preferences, making it easier for others to interact with you in a way that feels comfortable and respectful.

In this post, we'll:

• explore the benefits of creating a personal user manual (or personal user guide)

• provide some tips for getting started

• explore how PXO Culture uses them as part of our work with clients

There’s been quite a buzz lately about personal user manuals as a new way to help teams develop. We’ve worked with a number of organisations introducing these as a new tool and we highlighted this as a key trend to watch out for in the HR Trend Institute report back in 2021.

But in case you were wondering if personal user guides replace the team-building day, don’t worry you can still climb poles and jump rivers if you want to but you can also get to know your colleagues without building a bridge out of pallet wood.

What is a personal user manual?

A personal user manual is a document that outlines your personality, communication style, and preferences. It’s basically a summary of how you prefer to work and interact with other people, a guidebook for interacting with you as a human being created by you. It can include information about your work style, how you like to receive feedback, your preferred communication methods, and more. It provides others advice, ideas and a framework to best interact with you. The goal is to make it easier for others to understand and work with you, ultimately improving your relationships and productivity.

Why you need a personal user manual

A personal user manual can be a valuable tool in both personal and professional settings. It can help you communicate your needs, preferences and quirks more effectively, reduce misunderstandings and conflicts, and improve collaboration and productivity. By creating one, you can take control of how others perceive and interact with you, and ensure that your unique qualities and strengths are recognized and appreciated.

People often (incorrectly) assume how others work, which leads to wasted time, energy, and negative emotions. This is highly likely to be made worse by remote working, so if team members are not co-located such guides become indispensable. They can help to set everyone’s expectations, create a sense of vulnerability (and by extension, humility) and foster psychological safety.

This article on LinkedIn also points out how useful guides can be with neurodiversity such as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).

If people understand each other better that makes for better teams too. There will always be conflicting needs and preferences of people and it’s unrealistic to expect people to make large changes to accommodate each other. However, small compromises made early on in a working relationship can go a long way to help.

How does PXO Culture utilise personal user manuals?

Part of the work we do with our clients involves forming new teams or getting existing teams to work better together and the personal user manual is a useful tool for achieving these aims.

For example, we recently ran one of our Agile HR Bootcamps with a newly formed HR team. We started the program with a session where each team member (including management) compiled their own guide. Once complete, each person shared key points of their own plan with the other members of the team. Not only did this help the team get to know each other it also helped the facilitator understand how people wanted to give and receive feedback and set a communication style for the rest of the program.

Similarly, we often deploy personal user manuals as part of HR Leadership Development assignments and Consulting as they can help a manager or team leader communicate their leadership style.

We also encourage organisations to get new employees to compile such a guide as part of the onboarding process and quite a few of our clients have already introduced them or similar techniques.

Compiling personal user manuals is an opportunity to develop more empathy, building psychological safety and a sense of belonging. It’s therefore an essential tool in an strategy. It also fits nicely with workplace personalization, which we’ve discussed before and identified as another long-term trend. Don’t assume that everyone’s the same or push for everyone to be the same. Accept that people are different, and take that into account by acknowledging people’s strengths and weaknesses.

Central to our approach to Agile HR is the concept of building multifunctional, T-shaped teams of people with T-shaped skill sets and compiling these manuals complements this approach. Regardless of the hard and soft skills team members possess it’s good to know that while one team member loves to solve problems but may easily lose focus, another person might not be hugely creative but loves detail. Another team member might be a little chaotic, but very creative while another colleague may be more task-oriented and the combination makes a better team

Surfacing the diversity of thought and perceptions in a team only serves to strengthen it.

Personal user manuals are also a good basis on which to build a team working agreement. For example, when should you have meetings and why? What behaviours do you expect from others? What are the preferred working tools such as Kanban and brainstorming using Miro for example?

How to create your personal user manual.

Creating a personal user manual can be a game-changer in both your personal and professional life. It allows you to communicate your needs, preferences, and boundaries to others in a clear and concise way, saving you time and energy in the long run.

What questions should your guide cover? An easy place to start is to use a template, like the one below that we use at PXO Culture.

You can leave some of the boxes blank if you like and you can change or add more categories.

Once you’re done, share the result with people you interact with regularly, such as coworkers, friends, and family members and remember to show it to new team members so you can get off to the best start possible working together.

Download your free Personal User Manual template

Fun facts about me

This might be about a hobby of yours, an unusual skill you have, something you have a passion for, like travelling or just a quirky detail about you.

For example, Natal is an Aussie who lives in Scotland. Tim can juggle and loves Ramen.

Best ways to communicate with me

Are you someone who likes a bit of small talk before getting into the main discussion or do you find that annoying and a waste of time?

This part can be particularly useful for neuro non-typical people. You might not like talking on the phone or prefer face-to-face conversations because of difficulties writing, such as dyspraxia (DCD). Are you direct and to the point, or do you prefer to use stories and examples to illustrate your points? For example, someone with ADHD might prefer work tasks to be written down as opposed to verbal with clear prioritisation.

For example, Natal loves a chat before getting down to business. Tim dislikes jargon and ambiguous language.

How I best receive feedback

This is really a specific aspect of the previous section but a very important one. Do you like to receive feedback in a certain way, such as in writing or in person? Some people find it difficult to handle feedback regardless of whether it’s positive or negative. Also, consider whether you like to receive feedback in a direct and immediate manner or in a less blunt way.

For example, Natal likes to use the ‘I like… I like… I wonder if…’ technique whereas Tim prefers to get unfiltered feedback as soon as possible regardless of whether it’s positive or negative information.

What gives me energy at work

If you’re an extrovert, you might get energised by working in a group or in a café as people move about and socialising around you. You might listen to music through headphones or use earplugs to cut out your environment as your best way to get things done. Some people are motivated by problems that need to be solved, others like predictable environments with clear rules.

For example, Natal loves networking opportunities and working in vibrant environments. Tim, on the other hand, prefers time alone or working quietly in small groups.

How I learn best

Are you someone who learns by giving it a go or do you prefer to read the manual? Totally immersive periods of hyperfocus might suit your way of learning whereas a colleague might need to take things step-by-step over a longer period of time.

For example, Natal learns best by doing and reflecting and talking about it, whereas Tim likes to extensively research and then demonstrate the learning through a project or application.

What drains me at work

Some people find noisy environments anxiety-inducing, and others find policy constraints disproportionately frustrating if the purpose of the rule isn’t clear. Meetings can be a potential pain point and it’s good to be clear about things like the comfortable limit to the number of people in a meeting, and what to do if the main topic of the meeting is resolved early and there’s time remaining. Some organisations have rules around meetings. Amazon has one minute of silence at the beginning to read the agenda and a meeting must equate to making a decision. Tesla has the 2 pizza rule - if it takes more than two pizzas to feed a meeting, there are too many people.

For example, Natal sometimes finds the need to be systematic and process-orientated very tiring. Tim generally prefers to approach things systematically and finds vague terminology hard to navigate. We both get frustrated by rules that don’t seem to have a logical purpose.

Things people might misunderstand about me

This may not just be a personal thing but also reflect a culture. For example, some cultures are known for being very direct in their dealings with other people. It can also be something simple like being shy and the irony that shy people can often seem aloof or even arrogant until you speak to them.

Both Tim and Natal are known for their dry humour.

Favourite books, quotes, songs, emojis

This information can make great icebreakers when coming into contact with someone new. Also, often what someone reads or listens to gives you quite a deep insight that you don’t get in a general conversation.

For example, Natal loves rebellious music particularly when it has a political or social cause. Tim likes to use fake quotes like ‘time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana’.

Tom Haak, a long-time collaborator of ours, believes that often taking into account simple tips about people can make our lives a lot easier. You generally don’t need anything complicated like a deep psychological analysis.

Other examples of personal user manuals

The template PXO Culture uses is fairly simple and a useful starting point. Atlassian has this great playbook on personal user manuals and how to run a team activity around them.

Micheal Lopp has a great guide entitled ‘How to Rands’, which apparently inspired ‘How to Gordon’.

It’s not uncommon to link personal user manuals with a personality test. For example, Peter van der Bel and his team utilise the well-known BIG-5 personality test. Peter’s approach is particularly useful for quickly establishing a rough level of compatibility with someone you’re thinking of working with.

Other established personality tests you can use are DiSC, Belbin, Myers Briggs, Insight Discovery, 16PF or Hogan all of which we are well-versed in here at PXO Culture.