Art of Working with Me User Guide

Introduction

In the Art of Working with Me, we have generated a set of practical insights tailored to you and your teammates, based on your unique personalities. The goal of this feature is to foster meaningful conversation and ultimately improve understanding, cohesion, and performance amongst individuals and teams.

There are 4 key areas of focus: How I prefer feedback, How to best support me, How to help me navigate change, and What causes me stress or fatigue. For each category, you will find up to 6 statements depending on your assessment results (individuals with more moderate scores across key traits may have less than 6 statements per category).

You can find your Art of Working with Me insights in the “Working with Me” tab of your About Me. For your teammates, you can find their Art of Working with Me insights by navigating to the About Others, searching for their name, and selecting the “Working with Me” tab.

Getting Started

Once you have completed the PrinciplesUs assessment, navigate to your Art of Working with Me and begin customizing each category. For each category:

Click on the “Edit” icon to begin customizing the section.
Star the 2-3 statements that stand out the most to you - this will help your teammates know what is most important to you!
Add any general reflections at the category-level and/or examples at the statement-level. These comments will be visible to your teammates, and help give them more personalized context.
If applicable, you can hide any statements that you disagree with so that they are not visible to others in your organization.

Note: To add an example/context at the statement level, click on the comment icon. To hide a statement that you disagree with, click “Hide” (you can unhide statements at any time).

Suggested Use

Generally speaking, you’ll find the Art of Working with Me to be a flexible feature in how it can be used. Not only can it be used for workshops or more formal engagements, but also as a reference before or during more casual, day-to-day interactions. It can also be used for both, where having a more formal engagement can set the stage for ongoing usage. Below we have shared guidance for how you might use the Art of Working with Me in a formal context and/or in your day-to-day interactions.

Using the Art of Working with Me in a Formal Context

Each of the four areas of the Art of Working with Me can be broken down into four “modules.” For each module, you can get started by asking each person to navigate to their About Me and select the 2 statements that resonate the most for them within that category and elaborate with context (if they haven’t already).

Once you’ve given everyone enough time to do this (~10-15 minutes), they should be prepared to take turns sharing their selections and providing relevant context/examples with the group. For this, you can create a new Group and leverage the “Working Together” team view - an aggregate of all insights for individuals in a Group. In this view, you will also find our suggested Discussion Prompts, which you might find helpful.

Discussing these topics as a team in depth not only helps build general awareness on how best to collaborate with each other but also helps to foster a more psychologically safe culture.

Note: You can find the “Working Together” tab for a Group by navigating to the Groups tab of the application and creating a new group (or viewing an existing group). By default, we will only display the starred statements for each person. To see all statements for an individual, simply click “View All.”

Using the Art of Working with Me Day-to-Day

There are several ways that the Art of Working with Me can be used/referenced in your day-to-day interactions with your colleagues. Here are some examples:

Before meeting with someone 1:1, you can refer to their Art of Working with Me to get a better understanding of what they’re like / how to collaborate with them to have a better conversation and improve your working relationship.
If and when you find yourself in a situation where you need to provide someone feedback, you can refer to the “How I prefer feedback” section of their Art of Working with Me so you know how they prefer to receive feedback and can communicate in a way that will resonate with them.
If you’re meeting someone for the first time (or simply working together for the first time), you can use the Art of Working with Me to help foster a two-way conversation to get to know each other better. Not only will this help build general awareness on how to best collaborate/communicate with one another, but it will also help set the foundation for a more meaningful long-term relationship.
As a Manager or Team Lead, you probably encounter many situations where you need to communicate organizational changes (shifts to personnel, company goals, service offerings, and/or operations, etc). You can use the “How to help me navigate change” section of the Art of Working with Me to tailor your communication depending on the individual/team.

Using the Art of Working with Me in a Group Session

The Art of Working with Me can be a basis for a rich discussion to improve collaboration between you and anyone you work with. You can conduct an exercise as a team or group, or use it with individuals.

Pick any category - we suggest starting with “How I Prefer Feedback”

Pick at least 1-2 outputs from each category
Give an example of how that’s played out for you
Reflect on:
1. How would you describe that to others?
2. Are there others who are likely different from you?
3. How would you deal with those differences?
Group discussion - How does knowing that insight allow you to engage more effectively with this person going forward?