Hello,
A friend of mine started a new job recently as a building principal. On the opening day, my friend took the time to have the staff identify their “North Star,” or the goal for the year that they would all strive to achieve. My friend told me it was a very powerful experience for everyone.
Later the same day, there was a meeting where someone said something less than flattering about someone who worked in the building. Rather than letting the comment slide (which would have been the easy thing to do), my friend said, “Does that comment help us get closer to our North Star?”
The person who said it said, “No.”
“If we’re trying to get to our North Star, what could have been said instead?” my friend asked in a sincere, not accusatory tone.
“Actually, I probably wouldn’t have said anything,” the person who made the comment realized.
“Listen,” my friend said, “I completely understand that comments like that have been the norm around here and I’m the new guy. However, everyone has said they want a new culture and climate here, right? So, we can’t talk like we did before and expect things to change.”
I love this so much! I love it because my friend not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. I also love it because if nothing was said, then everyone else would have registered that the expressed North Star was not the actual North Star–there was an articulated way of speaking and behaving and a discrepant way that was the “real” norm.
Creating Norms
I am a huge advocate of articulating and adhering to norms or behaviors. Whether I’m teaching or facilitating a committee at work, I build in time to create norms. This generally can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes. For example, I’ll say:
Think about behaviors you have experienced in the past (be it in a class you took or in another setting) that impeded the team’s success. For example, have you worked with a team where they never started or ended on time? What norm would have been helpful: We will start and end our meetings on time.
Norms are created for behaviors that we might not do well yet. So, if we are really good about starting and ending on time, we actually don’t need a norm for that behavior since we’re already good with it. This is why I ask people to think about behaviors that impeded success.
Here is the general process I use to create norms:
Generate Ideas Independently: Everyone writes the behaviors/norms they want to see but think we might have trouble with on a post-it note. One note per behavior/norm. This is a silent and independent task.
Share and Cluster Ideas: Once people have generated their post-it notes, I ask them to gather around a table to share and cluster their notes into categories.
Craft the Norms: After the categories are determined, the group uses the post-it notes to generate the norm for that category.
Post the Norms: If we want people to adhere to the norms, we need to make them visible. Post the norms in a location that makes them continuously visible to the group members during their meetings.
(I have also done this virtually. If you’re interested in how, please send me an email at lyonsletters@outlook.com.)
Practicing Norms
A good rule of thumb regarding norms is to keep them to a manageable number, generally three to five, but no more than six. Also, norms are living–this means they can be modified or eliminated as the team successfully implements the norms or finds a need to update the norms. To accomplish this, I start the meetings by saying, “Please review our norms and let me know if there are any that need to be updated or if you are good with them the way they are.” I also reinforce the norms by doings things like starting the meeting and asking:
“Are there any norms that we have been doing well that we should celebrate and/or retire?”
“Are there any norms that we have been struggling with that we should focus on and/or revise?”
“Please independently select a norm that you want to focus on during today’s meeting that you feel like you could work on.”
“As a team, what is a norm that we should focus on today that we could work on as a team?”
Norm Check
In reality, norms serve as a safety net to catch us when (not if) we fall. They are created proactively to ensure there are articulated and shared understandings about the group’s behavior. That said, since norms are created to ward against unwanted behaviors that could potentially arise, there is a good chance that the norm may be violated. Going back to the starting and ending on-time norm, what happens when/if we start or end late? I have found this simple response said in a neutral tone is very effective.
“When we created our norms, we were concerned about late starts and finishes so we created the norm, ‘We will start and end on time.’ As you know, we have arrived and ended late. Should we revise the norm to match our behavior or revise our behavior to match the norm?”
Anyone can say this; it’s not the responsibility of the facilitator to guard the norms–it’s everyone’s responsibility. Whomever says it, though, should say it with true curiosity.
Rights and Responsibilities
Sometimes, however, there is not time to create norms. I find this to be the case most often when the team will not meet more than a handful of times and/or the meetings themselves are short in length. Another challenge may be that the group is too large to create their own norms. If time and/or size are a constraint, I have prepared commitments I share with the team and ask them to review the commitments to determine (a) what changes the team may want to make to the commitments and (b) if they can agree to the commitments.
Rights | Responsibilities |
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(* If the people on the team are not representatives or I have concerns about someone dominating the conversation, I change D under “Responsibilities,” to, “To provide equity of voice.”)
When sharing these commitments, I always make a point to highlight the importance of Rights C and E.
This is the time and place to share concerns and disagree. I’d much rather we do that here when we’re together than have a bunch of bobbleheads who nod yes but actually have doubts. It’s better we beat it up while we’re here together rather than have it beat up by others when we roll this out.
Furthermore, since you have Responsibility E, ‘To publicly support decisions,’ your name and reputation are connected with this work. This is why you need to speak up if you have concerns or disagree.
Finally, since we all have the right to be respected and the responsibility to be respectful, I have no doubt that we can be respectfully honest–we can disagree with ideas, not people, and disagree without being disagreeable. Right? In fact, I’ll probably ask us at certain points to pretend like we are a resistor to beat up the idea so we can ensure we’re approaching this from all angles.
While many people call this being the devil’s advocate, I love to use the concept of The 10th Man. I write about The 10th Man in one of my favorite Lyon’s Letters, “Zombie Problems.” I coined the phrase “zombie problems” to describe problems at work that you thought were resolved that later rise from the dead, often with a vengeance. In that Letter, I wrote:
There are only two reasons to watch this movie [World War Z] as far as I’m concerned. The first is Brad Pit. The second is the “theory of the 10th man.” I’m giving nothing away to tell you that the premise of the movie is that zombies are taking over the world. Somehow, however, Israel proactively built a wall around itself that zombies could not scale. Pitt’s character goes to Israel to find out why Israel did this since, when the wall was built, zombies were still cinematic monsters and not something in real life. The Israeli official Pitt interviews says that Israel has a council of ten leaders and when faced with a decision where nine agree, one of the council members plays the role of the “10th man,” who should always point out the flaws of the group's conclusion, even if the 10th man agrees. In the movie, nine council members agreed the idea of a zombie invasion was ridiculous, so the 10th man had to argue the “what if it isn’t?” The 10th man did some digging, he found some credible evidence to support the idea that zombies were coming, so they built the wall.
At the heart of norms and commitments is a desire to create safe, productive spaces for collaboration and growth. Whether you’re establishing a team culture or simply navigating daily interactions, the way we speak and behave has a profound impact on whether or not we reach our “North Star.” Holding each other accountable with curiosity and respect, just as my friend did, ensures that our aspirations are not just words on paper, but principles that guide us forward.
In the end, it’s not about perfection but about consistency—keeping our eyes on that North Star and making sure our actions align with our goals every step of the way.
~Heather
P.S. If you want to read a short and practical article about why and how to create norms, I recommend Joan Richardson’s “Norms Put the ‘Golden Rule’ into Practice for Groups,” my Catch of the Week. I have shared it countless times with teams to help level the playing field about why we create and use norms. Not only does Richardson give you steps to follow, but also a long list of examples of possible norms.
P.P.S. Please remember to...
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