jen briggs

Norms are something I have become acutely aware of related to company culture. In short – they are our normal. What we do and experience every day. They are our actions.

In strong purpose or values based companies norms are part of the company DNA. They represent what purpose and values lived looks like. It is the role modeling of the values. In great companies – the norms strengthen the values. In other companies – the norms weaken the values. People begin to question the values because they are not congruent with the way people act. This effect can be amplified when people are not able to see, read or hear top leadership or management norms reflecting the values. Think of the saying – practice what you preach. 

To help put this into context – let me explain on a personal level.

My children and I value family. Our commitment to each other is strong even through some of our harder times. The family-value-lived has looked and felt different over time. When the kids were little, I was insistent on dinner at the table together. It provided the setting for lessons, discussion, and bonding. For a while I made them talk about the high-low experiences of their day.

As they grew older, our schedules became more complicated. They were in sports, school, homework, had their friends and things that they needed to do and I had an aggressive work schedule. We continued to value family and this value-lived manifested through the family attending sports tournaments together, cheering, supporting, and remaining committed to our family camping trip. Our norm of the family dinner waned and quality time over quantity became the new normal.

Now, it continues to look different. They are grown. Two of them have their own families. We continue to value family, but it is now through video calls, trips, and making commitments to periodic visits.

The same concept holds true for companies. If you value trust – what does that value lived look like? If you value open communication – the norm for this value may be lived differently in intact teams vs. remote staff. For employee-owned companies – the ownership value lived will look different when a company is small and when it grows. When a company is small, less segmented and possibly less specialized, more people may be involved in decision-making. As the company grows, you may move to the dynamic spectrum of influence for decision-making or have agile teams make faster decisions. Still inclusive and using distributed leadership and wisdom, but lived differently.

Norms can change without the values changing. However, when this change process is not managed, norms and values can get tangled. Norms may change and people may have inadvertently labeled them as values and feel like the company is losing its identity.

When you manage the change process by continually linking norms to values and re-norming as changes occur you help people make the mental association to the reason for the change. You help people understand why now and what the future may hold. When you re-norm inclusively, you give a voice to the team.

The first norming session for a team can take a while and I think it is best to include it during a participative planning session. If you incorporate norming into planning – people see how actions and attitudes can support or hinder plans. As the team builds their mental muscle around this idea in practice, re-norming will happen much faster.

How to norm.

This is a straightforward process. But, not unlike most social system activities, the interactions of the group can lead to a complex discussion.

If you are repairing a toxic team it is best to have an outside, objective facilitator. It is not a luxury to use a facilitator, but a requirement for a useful process. In toxic teams – it may be necessary to exclude the leader and have staggered sessions. Even in healthy teams, objective facilitators are beneficial – it is very difficult to wear the hat of facilitator, manager, and participant. Also, some managers are just poor facilitators. Regardless, don’t downplay the role of the facilitator.

Norming should typically be done at the team level vs. the company level. Why? It is the role of team leaders to hook their team culture into the company culture. This can be long-term teams, project teams or departments. Starting project teams with this process and personality assessment discussions can lead to a more successful project. The norms of any given team need to represent their current circumstances, phases of development and team personality. They also all have an obligation to live the values of the company they signed up to work with and for.

Step 1: Explain the role of each in the company:  purpose, values, norms, and mission. Have these written down and visible to allow for continual reflection and centering. Validate understanding of the norm idea by asking people to find one value-norm relationship from his or her personal life or past work experience.

Step 2: Set your decision-making plan for this activity. Who will approve your list of norms for the group?  Will the leader have veto power? Will the leader be taking this into account as input and make the decision over the entire list? Or, will the leader leave it up to the group?

It is always important to clarify decision-making in a process. Groups can feel very disempowered when they think they are making a decision then a manager takes this away from them. Will the group participate in making the decision? Will the group provide input and influence to the manager and help him or her make a better decision? Or (hopefully this is NOT the case) the manager retains full control and it is just an exercise with no impact or follow through.

For groups of people who have a majority new to the company and have not had the history, I advise the manager to have a bit more control and either decide on the final product or have veto power for anything that doesn’t jive. You have people who are in their learning stage and norming can be a valuable process to help accelerate assimilation. Just be clear about your logic and intention.

For groups that have a balance of new and tenured people, I advise the manager to support vs. control and let the group decide. If the decided norms don’t work well – discuss the deficiencies, identify the ideal and re-norm.  The term learning-moment has been overused but is apropos for this scenario.

Step 3: Observe the list of company values and discuss how each person and the people they observe live those values. Write each of these down. You can do this using the sticky-note/affinity diagram approach or a simple list.

Sticky note process – each person gets a stack and writes each observation down on a note. The notes are stuck on the wall and then the group organizes the many into affinity clusters resulting in a clear theme of thinking and a list of norms. I like this process best because it is balanced with self-thinking – good for introverts and to avoid group-think-bias. It then brings the group together for the extroverts and collaboration. 

*I am usually in favor of an appreciative inquiry approach – looking at the positive and aspirational. There are times that using this same process and also incorporating the negative will be valuable. Discuss the helpful norms that represent the values and the unhealthy norms that take the team away from them. What will we not do in the future? For example, in a high trust atmosphere – you won’t find people sitting in a meeting verbally silent, but visibly vocal – rolling eyes, moving back from the table, etc. Disucss the tone of conversation – what an objective vs. a passive-aggressive statement sounds like. Usually the same words, but with different tone. When you look at the positive and negative you set the guardrails for what to do and what not to do. If a team is already healthy or even neutral, don’t set the lower boundary. The team already knows this and the manager risks seeming overly parental our doubtful of the sentiments of the team. 

Step 4: By majority vote (not consensus) establish that each value-lived item warrants being on the list.

The thumb vote process can make this go faster. Thumb up – I agree. Thumb sideways – I’m not sure I agree, but I’m okay. Thumb down – I disagree and I’m not okay with it.

You may choose to discuss the thumbs down to get issues on the table. But, if someone is thumb-sideways they are indicating they are okay. Let them be okay and don’t invest your valuable time.

Step 5: You have a list. Now, give each person 3 sticky-dots or marker-tick-marks to use as a vote. Ask each person to vote for the top 3 norms that most exemplify the value-lived for this team right now.

Step 6: You have your norm list. Take a break.

Step 7: Now the group needs to agree on commitment and accountability. What will a person do to hold himself accountable to the new norms? What will the group do to support a system of peer accountability? Accountability is best when we are doing it for ourselves – we make a commitment, if we can’t or don’t keep it, we then … (?).

One of my favorite frameworks for an accountability discussion is CPR from the Vital Smarts group. It’s easy to remember and a straightforward concept to put into action.

Be wary of any job or comp related consequences proposed by the group. For example – watch out if a norm is some version of a positivity or optimism display. The NLRB has not taken kindly to employers forcing happiness or optimism in the workplace. Their logic is that by forcing superficial optimism, people will not feel comfortable bringing forward tangible workplace complaints. I can’t say I disagree. Blind optimism is not good, but a healthy team can bring up difficult subjects and solve problems together. Also, you do not want to drive superficial, mock-worthy workplace rules – the intention here is to set up a genuine framework for a healthy team. If you can see yourself in an episode of The Office with mandatory flair … just stop. Redirect. You might have other problems that need to be dealt with first.

You can end the meeting with a closing on the agreed to commitments. Hopefully, you have the luxury of taking a bit of time and doing something non-directly associated with work – a team lunch, having a beer (yes, I loved working in a brewery!) etc. Or, you can further individualize it by asking each person to write more about their commitment to change on a note card. In this notecard commitment exercise – a person will list his name and 3-5 individual commitments to the new norms. In one situation – I had a person commit to practicing mindfulness meditation to help him settle his anxiety before interacting with the team. He did great! Someone will keep the cards and in about 3-6 months in a group meeting, the cards will be redistributed to individuals and they will talk about if they have kept their commitment or if they have more work to do. You can and should do this with your norms – take 5 minutes in each huddle or team meeting and ask how the team is doing. You can use the start, stop, continue discussion and finely tune your norms over time. This can be a simple continuous cycle leading to self-accountably. It is an easy 5-10 minute per week activity that helps build team health and perpetuate the values that make your culture and brand special.