Helping You Build a Leaderful Organisation® 

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Norms & Groundrules for Great Teams

Related articles: Normal Expectations, Motivation: A Whistlestop Tour, Tale of Two Managers, Behaviour & The Traffic Light Concepts, Why People Don't Do What They're Supposed To Do The GAP Movie, Perils of Punishment, Bullying Report, and Bullying Quiz

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Let's talk about norms ...

Norms are the accepted behaviours and practices that develop in groups and are reinforced by peer pressure.

Norms are reinforced with social pressure and informal punishments like disapproving looks, non-cooperation, blocking, freezing people out, bullying, giving the grunge jobs to non-conformists, and favouritism.

Norms reflect the group’s assumptions and beliefs about what’s required for survival and success, and may be unquestioned and outside the awareness of members – until they encounter new leaders or other groups with different assumptions, beliefs and norms

Norms develop in every team as a result of

• unintentionally eg at the first meeting of a new team, you sit in a particular seat...from then on you take that seat and it becomes 'yours' so when a new member joins and goes to sit there, others in the team say, 'That's Sue's chair'.
  
  
• critical incidents in the group's history eg no-one offers suggestions at team meetings ever since the Sue tore strips off Pete for suggesting that everyone should sharing the role chairing team meetings
  
  
• baggage ie people bring with them rules, practices, expectations and patterns of behaviour that they have learned in other teams or workgroups
  
  
• what group leaders say & do ie our manager says that everyone's opinion counts and makes sure that everyone gets a say and a fair hearing at our staff meetings

Norms serve some important purposes for groups eg:

1. Helping (all or dominant) group members achieve their goals
   (these may or may not be the same as the organisations’ goals)
   
   
2. Helping the group achieve it's goals (these may or may not be the same as the organisations’ goals)
   
   
3. Demonstrating & preserving the values of (all or dominant) group members
   (these may or may not be the same as the organisations’ values )
   
   
4. Protecting the interests of (all or dominant) group members
   (these may or may not be the same as the organisations’ values )
   
   
5. Making life predictable & comfortable for group members
   
   
6. Reducing the risk of conflict between group members
   
   
7. Increasing the survival chances of people in the group (safety in numbers)

Workplace LEADERS can help groups develop helpful & healthy norms by:

1. Setting clear expectations & standards by

   • Making the organisation’s values explicit.
   • Making the groundrules explicit.
   • Modelling – walking the talk, reinforcing
     & sticking to the stated groundrules.
     
     
2. Selecting and developing people to ensure unwanted norms are NOT brought in or developed in the workplace
   
   
3. Offering straightforward & candid explanations for the values and rules
   
   
4. Engaging members in developing and owning the groundrules
   
   
5. Providing training, development, coaching to raise awareness and to remind people of the groundrules, their underlying values & the purpose they serve
   
   
6. Doing everything possible to make it easy & make it worthwhile, for people to  behave in productive ways and enjoy work safely and inclusively
   
   
7. Challenging & Realigning the rewards to reinforce behaviour and performance that serves the organisations’ goals and values
   
   
8. Developing & sharing leadership throughout the group

Groundrule Basics
Explicit groundrules, team contracts or clearly stated expectations help everyone know what’s required, and what is & isn’t acceptable

Formal leaders can and should set a handful of core, non-negotiable rules, and negotiate others with the team. Groundrules should only cover BEHAVIOUR (what people DO and SAY including the attitudes they display).

WARNING:        

Don’t try to manage between their ears!

Groundrules are most helpful when they are:

• Behavioural
  
• About do’s as well as/not just don’ts
  
• Specific
  
• In simple, active, language that's familiar to the group
  
• Communicated to all visitors as well as team members
  

It is counter–productive to set groundrules about what people think or feel  or what their attitude should be.

As a manager or team leader, you have no right to go there.

Besides, you can’t manage what goes on inside people’s heads & hearts even, if you insist on trying to dictate it. Trying to manage what people think or feel will just set you up for frustration & defeat!

But what’s the difference between ‘behaviour’ vs ‘between the ears’

behaviour	betwwen the ears
What people do or say, including the attidue the display Visible action You can directly observe, videotape or audiotape behaviour – including facial expressions, postures, gestures, tone of voice, volume, pitch or speed of voice	What people think or feel, believe, intend, want, need & their perception or attitudes You can’t see or control what goes on between a person’s ears – their attitude, their intentions, their motives, what they think, believe, want, perceive or feel.

 

Sometimes groups develop unhealthy or unhelpful norms develop

Here’s a test to help you decide whether the norms in your team are productive:

The rule, behaviour, practice or displayed attitude…
1.	Is in line with the organisation’s stated values		Is out of line with the stated values
2.	Is in line with laws, policies & code of conduct		Is illegal, breaches policy or code of conduct
3.	Helps the team deliver high performance		Prevents or undermines performance
4.	Ensures all team members feel welcomed and valued		Ensures some team members feel welcomed & valued - Excludes or freezes out others
5.	Ensures that diverse views & challenges to thinking are encouraged & taken into account in decisions		Discourages, punishes or shuts down people who express a different view, question or challenge the group’s thinking
6.	Ensures that all team members have meaningful roles		Ensure that some members get meaningful work while others get the grunge jobs
7.	Ensures team members responsibilities are resourced		Ensures that s ome team members have to resource their responsibilities from their personal lives or their health
8.	Ensures that the rights of those in and out of the group are championed and upheld		Ensures that members of the 'in-group' have more rights than others
9.	Ensures the health, safety and well-being of all team members, customers and suppliers		Endangers the health, safety and well-being of some team people
10.	Challenges & supports all group members to grow & contribute productively		Leads to decay & a misplaced sense of entitlement

If you tick any item on the right hand side, the norms are unhealthy and/or unhelpful.

So... What Can You Do if the Norms are Unhealthy or Unhelpful

When teams develop norms that serve the interests of dominant members, more than the organisation’s interests or at the expense of others – they become self-serving and counter-productive. In that case, it’s important to identify the problem then…

Challenge and Change the Group’s Norms

There are a number of intervention for changing norms – it’s important to use a combination & to seek change in the least expensive way possible. Here's our 7D Approach to Challenging & Changing Team Norms:

Dialogue, Discuss or Debate the Norms

name the norm(s), question and challenge its/their contribution to achievement of team goals, achievement of business goals, well being of individuals.

review: the team’s goals and the behaviours & displayed attitudes the business expects of/requires from members; behaviours & displayed attitudes members expect of each other; behaviours & displayed attitudes they can rightfully & realistically expect of each other… especially when problems, disagreements or conflicts emerge within the team and with other teams/groups/individuals; then identify/negotiate agreement on/commitment to a set of explicit groundrules/norms that support the team’s achievement of goals and the team’s contribution to the business

Develop

explicit groundrules or a 'team contract' (see example below)

develop people - provide training for members together & separately; coach & reinforce the healthy & helpful norms - make it as rewarding as possible for people to 'get with the new norms'

expose members to different approaches/views and their costs/benefits/alignment with business requirements and direction, individual well-being, future trends.

Dilute

bring in large numbers of new people with norms already aligned to organisation

bring in new members (plural – not just one) skilled in healthy & helpful behaviours, practices, and leadership

Disperse

move some key members into other teams with norms healthy & helpful norms

this could also be called divide and conquer – it’s a legitimate strategy when it’s done in the interests of the organisation and not for your own political ends

Direct

name the norms & clarify where they are out of alignment with expectations & requirements of the team

set clear expectations & lay down clear groundrules about future behaviour & expected attitudinal displays - these should direct behaviour (especially in tense or difficult situations -
eg when problems, conflicts or disagreements emerge within the team and with other teams/groups/individuals.

Discipline

hold people accountable – remind them what’s expected and why –

set clear expectations, work your guts out to help them deliver and change their norms, and if they don’t move ‘em out.

after setting expectations & reminding, deal directly, fimly and fairly with those who choose to behave in ways that harm, exclude or put people or the business at risk

Disband

if all else fails or leads to destructive conflict, disband the group completely.

 

Here's an example of a team contract developed following a very difficult period of destructive and damaging storming in a workgroup:

We’ve found that the following behaviours just DON’T work for us because they increase frustration, they make bad situations worse, they make life hell:

• Bullying, yelling at each other, threatening each other, intimidating each other
  or standing by and letting others be bullied, victimised or harassed
  
  
• Blaming & accusing people without checking the facts or without giving them a full, fair hearing, or blaming each other for things that are not our responsibility
  
  
• Making others pay for our unhappiness and taking out our frustrations on others by spitting the dummy, throwing tantrums, shutting or freezing people out, sulking, seething, doing ‘no speaks’, pretending not to hear, deliberately ignoring each other, being non-co-operative, playing stupid, or withholding information, assistance or support, constantly dragging up the past
  
  
• Prying, spying on each other and snooping around to find dirt on each other
  Keeping dirty little secrets or dirt files on each other
  
  
• Betraying each other’s confidence or trust
  
  
• Drinking alcohol at work
  
  
• Engaging in sexual behaviour, sexual talk and sexualised relationships at work
  
  
• Saying one thing and meaning another and making commitments we don’t intend keeping
  
  
• Backstabbing, talking about each other, gossiping, spreading rumours,
  undermining each other or engaging in character assassination
  
  
• Exaggerating, twisting or distorting things to make ourselves look good or
  to make others look bad
  
  
• Sniping and taking pot shots at each other, low blows and hitting below the belt
  
  
• Pretending we’re perfect and demanding or expecting people to be perfect; expecting people to read minds or somehow know without being told, without an explanation or without instruction

We’ve made a commitment to each other and to ourselves to find & use
healthy & helpful ways of dealing with things

Specifically we agree

1. To deal with each other straight and above board
   
   
2. To really listen when others tell us they have a problem with our behaviour
   
   
3. To work on problems together
   
   
4. To fight fair
   
   
5. To put things right when we blow it
   
   
6. To coach each other & be coached to behave in ways that make this a great place for everyone to work.

 

You are person number to read this article since 20-10- 2003!
Remember to exercise judgment and discretion in choosing whether, when and how to use any of these concepts and suggestions to inform your consideration of issues.

Nothing in this article constitutes advice for specific matters or issues you may be considering - so please ensure that you source appropriate, professional advice on specific matters you confront.

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