What makes a team successful? What are the most critical norms of high performance teams? How do you establish team norms?
10 Steps for Establishing Team Norms:
1️⃣Ask each member to think of the worst team they’ve served on. Any group counts — a work team, a volunteer group, a sports team — as long as the members were dependent on each other to produce results.
2️⃣Have each team member spend 2 minutes writing down what made that experience so terrible. Direct them to be as specific as possible about their reasons.
3️⃣Ask team members to share their experiences with the whole group.
4️⃣Ask each member to think of their best team experience. As with the negative experience, each team member should spend 2 minutes writing down what made the experience so good.
5️⃣As before, encourage team members to share their experiences with the whole team.
6️⃣With these comments in mind, discuss as a group what makes for a good team experience and what makes for a bad one.
7️⃣Ask team members to suggest behaviors and team norms that would contribute to the current team’s success. Pay attention to the most relevant issues or actions that could affect the team’s biggest challenges. Be sure to keep track of suggestions on a screen or large sheet of paper that all team members can view.
8️⃣Discuss the suggestions as a group and decide as a group which ones the team can support and adhere to.
As part of this step, flag any concerns or challenges that the team thinks they may struggle with. Even if you can’t identify a solid solution, doing this keeps reality in the forefront.
9️⃣Discuss how to respond to a team member who doesn’t follow the norms. What is the mechanism for dealing with this situation? Ideally, the team members will take ownership of team norms, calling out inconsistencies and violations rather than expecting the team leader to police the process.
🔟Transfer the team’s list of “must-do” behaviors into a document so all team members have access to it. Your team may choose to post the list of team norms electronically or in its regular meeting room for quick reference.
Acknowledgment: 10 Steps for Establishing Team Norms by Center for Creative Leadership and infographic Source: Ivona Hirschi
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