Team Rules

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Every group creates rules, but usually this happens naturally without discussion and the rules remain unwritten. Unwritten rules are a leading cause of team conflicts and reduce the willingness of team members to communicate or cooperate. Each person assumes the other "knows better" when in fact the other doesn't know the rule he or she is supposedly breaking or sees it differently. Plus, new team members don't know the unwritten rules and thus are guaranteed to break them. The lack of clearly stated rules allows damaging behaviors to continue, as people following their own agendas can use the excuse, "Nobody told me I couldn't do that."

Fortunately, it is easy to create a set of written team rules:

  1. Ask this question: "What drives you crazy about working on a team?" (Note: You are looking for a list of behaviors, actions you can observe or track.)
  2. Brainstorm a rough list of answers to that question, making sure no one comments on the answers.
  3. Combine, delete, and revise as needed.
  4. Convert the remaining answers, no more than 10, into a list of rules.
  5. Decide on a safe method of enforcement, with the steps everyone agrees a team member can take when he or she thinks a rule has been broken.

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