Team Norms
Think about your team and answer the following questions.
How does your team respond when a member makes a costly mistake?
When you have team meetings, do you begin with an icebreaker, small talk, or dive straight into business?
Do people on your team close the doors to their office, put in headphones, or do something else to signal they are in a meeting and/or focus time?
Does your team primarily communicate through email, direct messaging (i.e. Slack, Teams, or Hangouts), text messages, phone calls, or face-to-face?
When someone finishes the coffee pot, do they leave it empty, brew more coffee, or wash it?
Your answers to these questions reveal a few of your team’s norms.
Team norms are the rules and expectations that drive team behavior. They are often unwritten and formed informally over time as behavior is enacted, accepted, reinforced, or praised.
And yet, despite (or perhaps because) they are often formed informally, they have a profound effect on shaping behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.
Norms are not inherently positive or negative. They are neutral and natural.
Every team, group, relationship, society, etc., has norms. They form from an innate human desire to belong, fit in, and find acceptance within a group. This is intensified when that group provides a sense of identity, security, and well-being - as is often the case with a work team.
While norms are neutral and natural, that doesn’t mean that all norms are created equal.
Sometimes they inhibit peak performance - like on a team I was a part of where deadlines were interpreted as little more than suggestions rather than critical commitments, which inhibited our ability to plan, trust, and drive exceptional performance with clear accountability.
Other times they may be beneficial in some situations and inhibitory in others, like when I was part of a team where every decision was dealt with collaboratively - even if the decision was as simple as what sticky notes we would be purchasing for our upcoming office supplies order.
And in other instances, they’re based on preference and a desired culture like whether (and to what extent) we celebrate birthdays or if employees eat lunch together or individually at their desks.
Norms serve as rules for conduct.
They inform behavior - letting members know what is accepted, what’s allowed, and what’s considered deviant.
They vary from organization to organization and often even among teams within the same organization.
Understanding norms allows group members to moderate their behavior in a way that increases the likelihood of them being accepted into the group, and perhaps more importantly not ostracized.
Norms create and reinforce culture.
You’ve felt this if you’ve ever joined a new organization and found yourself wondering:
“What will my coworkers think about the vacation I already had scheduled that happens to fall on my third week of work?”
“I was delegated a task that could be completed quicker with the help of a coworker who has complimentary expertise. Do I go to them directly for help? Do I ask my supervisor to include them? Do I just figure it out on my own?”
“A customer brought to my attention an issue with their account that was caused by our mistake. Do I have authority to help them in ways I see fit? Do I need supervisor approval?”
You knew the answers to these questions at your previous organization intuitively. But, now that you’re a part of a new organization, you have to learn “how things are done around here.”
Norms are formed both explicitly and implicitly.
Leaders need to be aware of the existence of norms and the outsized impact they have in shaping team member behavior.
They need to know that while norms will form without them creating those norms, they still have a responsibility to be intentional in establishing norms with their team in critical areas that impact the team’s ability to fulfill its mission and vision.
Additionally, leaders should be cognizant of the reality that the team’s values will serve as a measure against which norms are appropriated. Meaning, if the team has a value such as “Provide Exceptional Customer Service”, the team will be unlikely to establish norms that run contrary to this value like ignoring customer requests or talking poorly about customers amongst each other.
This doesn’t mean that deviant behavior won’t exist, but it does mean that if the values are known and reinforced, then the deviant behavior will be easier to recognize and less likely to be accepted as normative by the group.
Lastly, leaders need to be strategic in which norms they co-create explicitly with the team and which they allow to be formed implicitly.
Below is a list of some areas we recommend leaders explore with their teams to create explicit norms.
Communication: What are our expectations for how we communicate with each other (i.e. medium, frequency, response times, etc.)? Are these the same expectations for how we communicate with external stakeholders? What about internal stakeholders outside of our team?
Work-Life Balance: What are our expectations for each individual’s relationship between work and their personal life and navigating responsibilities in both domains? If you have a doctor’s appointment or kids’ event, do you need to let the team know, take PTO, etc.? If you go on vacation, how do you prepare others to function in your absence? What are our norms around “backup behaviors”? What are our expectations for communication after hours?
Decision Making: What are our processes for decision-making? What types of decisions can each individual make? What requires supervisor approval? What should be discussed with other members of the team?
Psychological Safety: How do we view and respond to mistakes? What does it look like to take personal responsibility for mistakes? How do we learn and grow together as a team when mistakes are made? If someone on the team has a concern, how should they bring that up?
Conflict: How do we view conflict as a team? Is it something to be avoided or something to be embraced? How do we ideally want to engage in conflict - with one another, as a team? How do we challenge one another in healthy and productive ways?
Teamwork and Collaboration: How do we work with one another? Is the expectation that each individual is responsible for fulfilling their role and responsibilities, or are we more collaborative (i.e. we win as a team and lose as a team)? What does supporting one another look like? How do we view extra-role behaviors - should we always be looking for ways to help each other or should we each be responsible for ourselves? When is collaboration a good thing and when might it create too much redundancy and inefficiency?
While there is a growing body of research that explores the “right” answers to many of these questions, there is also a lot of room for individual variation.
As a leader, you have to determine what non-negotiables you want to monitor and manage, the critical factors you want to design explicitly, and the areas you are okay with being formed implicitly and informally.
