Build Communication Norms Now, Avoid Drama Later
Establishing group norms early can save you a lot of headache later. Here’s why it matters, and how to make it happen.
Before we get started, a big hello to all my IPRA friends joining the newsletter this week. Find more on handling conflict at work here. Lovely to speak with you last week!
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There’s an old saying that I think of often:
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”
This saying comes to mind most often when I’m working with teams to discuss their group’s ability to have healthy conflict.
The most important work we can do to have healthy conflict is to discuss how to have healthy conflict BEFORE it happens. Setting ground rules for conflict when in the midst of it is sometimes necessary—but it’s the second best time to do so. If you want a team that’s truly able to debate ideas, offer recommendations, and question assumptions, it’s always best to do the work early.
The importance of healthy conflict
Most of us would love to believe that conflict is always avoidable. The very word “conflict” can make our skin crawl.
If that’s how you feel, it’s likely because you’re experiencing interpersonal conflict. In that kind of conflict, the suggestion is that the person is the problem. The relationship is at risk. If not addressed carefully, it can lead to persistent negative feelings, silos and side taking, decreased productivity, and ultimately a toxic culture or turnover.
We don’t want that kind of conflict.
The conflict we do want is task conflict. Task conflict helps us get to the best ideas through creative and kind-but-still-critical thinking. It leads to improved understanding, strengthened relationships, process improvement, and even innovation.
Here’s the thing—most interpersonal conflict begins as task conflict. As patterns develop, the task conflict stops being just about the way work is done and begins to be about the person:
She always discredits my ideas.
He’s never open to change.
Her team is always late.
He’s so unsupportive.
That downward spiral, from being about the task to being about the person, is where danger emerges. But danger can also show up in another place: silence.
Teams where no conflict (especially task conflict) exists aren’t at peace. Wharton business school professor and bestselling author Adam Grant says, “The absence of conflict is not harmony. It’s apathy. If you’re in a group where people never disagree, the only way that could really happen is if people don’t care enough to speak their minds.”
Making it safe to speak your mind is the work of leadership—and as we established at the start, the best time to do that work is in the past, before conflict is needed.
Establishing group norms
The best advance work you can do to help your team have healthy conflict is to establish group norms. Norms are shared agreements for appropriate communication and behavior.
Group norms can help create awareness of emotions, regulate those emotions, strengthen trust, and establish how we want to approach conflict.
To establish group norms, gather your team in a room. If your team is more than eight people, divide into smaller groups (six to eight is a good group size). Then ask these questions:
What kind of behaviors help you feel respected in a group?
How should we express disagreement with others and debate ideas?
What should happen if tempers begin to rise?
What expectations do we have for confidentiality?
What expectations do we have for attentiveness?
How will we hold each other accountable?
What helps you feel appreciated?
What helps you feel heard?
Give your group about 15 minutes to discuss these ideas—ask each group to make a list of the behaviors and expectations they identify.
At the end of this time, go around the room asking each group to share the first idea on their list. Write it on a flipchart or whiteboard, or type it on a slide. Group similar ideas if you can. Continue going around the room until each behavior and expectation is on the board.
Then ask the group for revisions—what is missing? What is unclear? Are there ideas that team members don’t agree with? Refine the list.
Ask for objections. If there are none, ask everyone who agrees to abide by these group norms to raise their hand.
When your list is final, ask someone to clean it up and then share it with the team. Revisit this list regularly—before significant meetings, especially—so the agreements are top of mind. Then make good on your agreement to hold one another accountable to these behaviors.
Examples of group norms
Glen Singleton’s Courageous Conversations offers these simple recommendations for group norms:
Stay engaged
Expect to experience discomfort
Speak your truth (use I statements)
Expect and accept a lack of closure
Listen for understanding
One group I work with established these norms for their cohort of executives in a leadership development program:
Confidentiality – talk freely but it stays in this room; use your judgment
Be present and engaged; value this time together
Name what you’re observing and share your ideas
Show mutual respect and assume positive intent
Praise in the group, coach the individual in private
Prioritize sharing insights and real-life experience
Celebrate each other
Put the learning into practice and hold each other accountable for doing so
You can see how these ideas help shape how each team member should show up in the meeting. And if you’re truly speaking your truth or sharing your ideas, it will eventually lead to discomfort and healthy conflict. It should also lead to understanding, insights, and learning.
The mistakes groups make
My colleagues and I use this process several times a month to help teams and groups—even very large groups—determine how they’ll interact with one another. Establishing group norms is a powerful tool, IF the norms are continually used.
We most often encounter two mistakes when it comes to group norms:
Failure to hold people accountable: Imagine your group has an agreement to be “present and engaged.” But one person is continually on his phone, tapping away at text messages, and (maybe even) mindlessly scrolling ESPN. Ideally, someone would gently confront him at a break. A question, “Is there anything going on that is urgent?,” might help refocus his attention. Most groups will avoid this conflict.
Failure to speak up: The other challenge we encounter is that despite norms that suggest team members will participate actively, show positive regard, and respond to ideas with respect, some team members still withhold their thoughts. If that occurs, leaders need to consider why this is happening. Is it personality, a lack of psychological safety, or is one person dominating the conversation? Then address the root cause.
Group norms won’t keep you out of conflict—they aren’t designed to do so. Instead, they give you ground rules for how to proceed when you find yourself in conflict. Hold one another accountable to the norms and keep the conflict focused on the task, and you should find the conversation is productive and even energizing.
BONUS QUESTION & CONTENT
I just finished How to Eat, a slim book by Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.
The book consists of mini meditations on mindful eating: how can we bring our attention to what we eat, so we eat with more respect for our ecosystem, our neighbors, and our own bodies?
Knowing that many of us eat when we feel stressed (or angry, sad, celebratory, bored, etc.), the author offers the wisdom, “Don’t chew your worries.”
What worries are you chewing right now? And how could you have a more mindful diet?
While that’s mostly a self-reflection question, it might be instructive to ask of your direct reports or colleagues, in a 1:1 meeting. What is the worry you can’t let go of, that you’re turning over and over in your mind?
Photo by Thirdman.