How to Work With Me Template: A Free Manager README You Can Fill In Tonight

A "how to work with me" template is a one-page guide that tells your team how you communicate, make decisions, give feedback, and want to be reached. Managers call it a README or user manual. Below is a template with ten prompts and a filled-in example. It takes about 30 minutes to write and saves weeks of guessing for every new person on your team.

The How to Work With Me Template (copy this)

Keep each answer to two or three lines. If a section needs a paragraph, it is probably a team rule, and it belongs in your how we work guide instead.

How to work with [your name]

1. My role: What I own, and what I am here to help you with.

2. My working hours: When I am online, and when I am not.

3. How to reach me: Which channel for what. What counts as urgent.

4. Meetings with me: What I need before a meeting. When I prefer a message instead.

5. How I make decisions: What I decide alone, what I want your input on, what you decide without me.

6. Feedback: How I give it, and how I want to receive it.

7. What I value: Two or three things I notice and reward.

8. What frustrates me: Be honest. This saves everyone time.

9. My blind spots: Where I need you to push back.

10. One thing people misread about me:

A Filled-In Example

Here is how a head of product at a 200-person company might fill it in.

Reach me: Slack for anything that can wait 4 hours. Call if a customer or a release is at risk.

Meetings: Send the question you want answered in the invite. If it is an update, send it in writing and I will reply the same day.

Decisions: You own anything inside your area under two weeks of work. Bring me anything that changes the roadmap or another team's plan.

Feedback: I give it in our 1:1, direct and specific. Tell me in the moment if something I did slowed you down.

Blind spot: I jump to solutions fast. If you need me to listen first, say so.

People misread: Short replies mean I am busy, not upset.

Why This Works: What Makes Teams Smart

In a well-known study published in Science, Anita Woolley and colleagues gave small groups a range of tasks, from brainstorming to puzzles to negotiation. Some groups did well across almost every task. The researchers called this a "collective intelligence" factor.

The surprising part: group performance was not strongly linked to the average or highest IQ in the group. It was linked to how well members read each other, and to how evenly people took turns speaking. Groups where one or two people dominated the conversation did worse.

A README helps with both. It tells people how to read you, so they spend less energy guessing your mood or intent. And when you write down "push back on me here," you give quieter people permission to speak up. That is the even turn-taking the research points to.

It also cuts meetings

Many recurring meetings exist because people do not know what you need. When your README says "send updates in writing" and "here is what you can decide without me," a lot of check-ins stop being needed.

How to Use It So It Changes Something

Share it in the first week

Send it to every new report before your first 1:1. Use that 1:1 to talk through it, not to read it aloud.

Ask your team to write one too

A README that only goes one way is a rule list. Ask each person to fill in the same ten prompts. Use them in your one-on-one meetings.

Ask people if it is true

Once a quarter, ask your team: "What in my README is not true in practice?" The gap between what you wrote and how you behave is the most useful part.

"I wrote that I want pushback. Where have I made that hard for you?"

Update it

Put a date at the top. Change it when your role, team, or habits change.

Three Teams, Three Results

Startup of 25: the CEO shared a README after new hires kept waiting for approval on small calls. Defining "you decide this without me" cut the CEO's approval requests roughly in half within a month.

Remote design team of 9 across four time zones: each person wrote a README with working hours and preferred channels. Late-night pings dropped, and the team replaced two weekly status calls with a written update.

New manager taking over a team of 6: shared a README in week one and asked for one back from each person. First 1:1s went straight to real issues instead of small talk about working styles.

Common Mistakes

Writing a personality profile

"I'm an ENTJ" tells people little. "I decide fast, so tell me if you need more time" tells them what to do.

Only listing the good parts

A README without blind spots reads like a job ad. The honest sections are the ones people use.

Writing it and forgetting it

If your behavior does not match the document, people trust the behavior. Check it with the team.

Mixing it with team rules

Your README is about you. Rules that apply to the whole team belong in a how we work guide.

How Spry Shows Whether Your Team Has Room to Work

A README tells your team how you want to work. Your calendar shows how they work in practice. Spry's calendar analytics show meeting load per person and team, how much deep work time is left in each week, and which recurring meetings take the most hours. If you wrote "send updates in writing" but your team still has four status calls a week, you will see it in the data.

[See your team's meeting load → Request access to Spry]

Wrote your README? I'd love to see it. DM me on LinkedIn.

Related reading

• Ways of working template: the free how we work guide

• One-on-one meeting agenda template

• Team meeting agenda template

FAQs

What is a "how to work with me" document?

It is a one-page guide a manager or team member writes to explain how they communicate, decide, and give feedback. It helps new colleagues work with you without months of trial and error.

What should a manager README include?

Your role, working hours, preferred channels, how you run meetings and make decisions, how you give and receive feedback, what you value, and your blind spots.

Is a manager README the same as a how we work guide?

No. A README is about one person. A how we work guide sets shared rules for the whole team, such as meeting norms and response times.

Should every team member write one?

It helps. When everyone shares one, people learn how to work with each other faster, not only with the manager.

How long should a "how to work with me" document be?

One page. If it gets longer, cut it. People will read one page and skip three.