Effective Teams Part 2: Examples of Team Norms

Team norms are basically relationship guidelines that develop gradually. Team members develop particular ways of interacting with each other over time until those habits become behavioral expectations. A team can have high performance norms or low performance norms… in addition to norms around things other than performance… such as communication, decision-making, or dealing with conflict. Here are several examples of some common team norms:

Decisions

• How are decisions made?
• Do we need to reach consensus?
• Who has the final say?
• Is open debate acceptable?
• Do we go with our gut or rely on data?

Meetings

• What is the structure of team meetings?
• When is it acceptable to miss a meeting?
• How do we encourage participation?
• When, how often, and for how long do we meet?
• Who keeps minutes?
• Who leads the meeting?

Project Management

• What is the definition of quality work?
• Do we strive for excellence or mediocrity?
• How strictly do we adhere to deadlines?
• Is creativity encouraged?
• Who leads the completion of the project?
• What are the roles and boundaries?
• Do we help each other out? To what extent?

Conflict

• How are rules enforced?
• How do we deal with mistakes?
• What sparks conflict?
• How is conflict resolved?
• Do we focus on the task or the people?
• What happens during a crisis?

Interpersonal

• How much internal competition exists?
• Do politics guide behavior?
• Do we really listen? Do people feel heard?
• Is there respect?
• How does communication flow?
• Is diversity respected?
• Does open dialogue occur?
• Is it a feedback-rich environment?
• How well do we know each other?
• Who has power and how is it attained?

This post was originally published on the Intuit QuickBase Team Leadership blog.