Ah, Yahoo's next! I am. Yes, what would you like? A cup of unspoken rules.
Ah, dee nons! Yeah, yeah, that's right. Take a seat, coming right up. That's quite impressive.
I wish we'd sit here with you. Well, thanks for joining me for episode number seven of Management Cafe, where we can consume some evergreen theories and models from our main menu, and also consider today's specials, those movements and trends that surround organisations today. If we haven't met before, my name is Pilar Ortiz, and in this Management Cafe I'd like to share the evolving role of the manager in organisations today, mainly looking at what sometimes is referred to as soft skills, those skills that have to do with interacting with others and which, apart from being soft, are very, very hard. Today, I've ordered unspoken team rules, or, as a lovely waitress said, team norms.
If you want to see what else is on the menu, then head over to virtualnoughtistant.com. That's virtualnoughtistant.com. We'll find the other episodes of Management Cafe, as well as those for 21st century work life, and virtualnoughtistant is the sponsor of this podcast. So have a look at our website, see whether we can help you and your team transition from working regularly in the office together to operating more like a virtual team.
And virtual teams will also develop norms, so I hope today's Management Cafe will be useful to you regardless of where your team members are based. Find a bit of settling in before our coffee. If you just want to subscribe to this podcast, then you can do so via your podcast app. Or if you want to receive an email with a new episode, then go to I'm going to send you to a different website, managementcafepodcast.com.
And in that blog, as well as subscribing via email, you can also read the full transcript of this episode. Here's your cup of team norms. Wow, it's really full. Thanks.
Okay, let's dive in. Like it or not, your behavior as a manager, as a team leader, or as official person leading a team really matters. Group norms develop as team members learn through experience what behaviors are acceptable and which aren't. These norms develop over time as different people watch others in the team and adapt their own behavior accordingly, either consciously or sometimes even subconsciously.
Group norms are those unspoken rules that emerge as people work together. They are part of a team's identity and culture. And some norms will be helpful, but others will be unhelpful. So at the very least, we should be aware of what they are.
If as managers, we are unaware of our own behavior, then we might well be planting the seed for an unhelpful group norm to emerge. For example, the simplest thing that comes to mind is attendance to meetings. If we always wait for people to arrive to our meeting, either in person or online, then a norm will develop that says that it's okay to be late for meetings in this team. So allow me to invite you for a little bit more of a guided coffee today.
To just say, let's assess our team norms can be quite daunting. When do we start? If we have a new team, how can we influence our team members so that healthy norms develop? As we are dealing with human behavior and even more challenging, we're dealing with behavior in groups, how about first breaking our thinking down into what kind of norms develop in teams?
So I've used a great textbook to help me with this called Organizational Behavior in Organizations by Baron and Cohen. What they suggest is when breaking down the kind of norms we might see in teams, they talk about norms around openness and honesty, taking responsibility, working with others, following the rules and use of resources. This is quite an interesting breakdown which can also help us to look at differences in our team. Because sometimes individual team members seem at odds with each other or there might be some conflict, some friction in a team if people view these aspects of working in a team differently.
For example, take openness and honesty. If you are someone who likes guarding their work and only sharing small bits of information on a needs-to-know basis, and you're working with someone who much prefers transparency, who doesn't mind everyone knowing what they're working on, etc., there are bounds to be clashes between you. You might think they require you to share too much and they might think that you don't trust them. So as well as using these five aspects of working together to identify our team norms, we can also use them to figure out what might be causing friction amongst team members.
Right. So bearing that in mind, let's start with openness and honesty. Well, there's not much more to add to the example I've just given you what is acceptable behavior in your team. And here it's worth to look at this behavior within the team and in relation to other teams on the rest of the organization.
Does your team believe their work should be kept secret? Or are they happy to be open about their process, their failures, their success? This is especially important if you're working in a virtual team, as most communication will be written down in a way which seems to be more definite than spoken. When you speak the words disappear, but in the written form they might stay around forever.
So there might be certain behaviors that have emerged around openness and honesty. Now this is a discussion that's worth having with your team at some point, especially if you're going to be working together from different locations. How open do we like being with each other? How honest do we like to be with the outside world?
The next area of group norms is taking responsibility for your actions. Are people ready in your team to say sorry my fault? Is that something that people are expected to do? Or is it always a question of yes, but I was waiting for Laura to get back to me.
So I couldn't finish that piece of work and I thought you don't like to be disturbed. So I didn't want to tell you it was going to be late. What about the more general? What does it mean to work with others?
This can be the third area of team norms we look at. Are people ready to share the credit with others? Or does shared accountability only happen when things go wrong? Do your people speak about we or I when they talk about the team?
How about you? What do you use? And do you change your language depending on whether what you're talking about can be regarded as positive or negative? Let's move on.
What about following the rules? Section number four around group norms. What happens in your team? Are rules followed to the letter?
Or are you a group of loose cannons who do whatever they want in the organization? My guess is that it's something in between, but you have a tendency towards one of the polls. You might just work within the boundaries of your organization. Or maybe you are a team that sees itself as being able to work around the rules and culture of the organization to get your work done.
Again, this might be an area of disagreement or even conflict between team members. So it's worth thinking and talking about. And finally, how about the use of resources? What is acceptable in your team?
Are you a team that looks for the most cost effective or cheap solutions? Or do you enjoy spending large budgets without thinking of where the money is coming from? Again, what are the unspoken rules within your team about this? So before I quickly recap these five different aspects of team norms, it's worth thinking about why we're looking at them today.
These are the unspoken rules in our team. They form part of our identity and will influence how others see us too. They might guide people's decision making. So if nothing else is worth being aware of what they are, and if some of them are causing us trouble or being unhelpful, and by that I mean that they're stopping us from doing our best work or are leading to problems between team members or with other parts of the organization, then they will be worth addressing.
At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, it's also worth noting that if someone is not fitting in with the team, it could be that they are at odds with the team's norms, that they feel like they need to act in a way that goes against their own principles and nature. That is worth addressing too. I'm afraid to say that how you deal with any of that will be left up to you as every case will be very, very different. But I hope that this list of group norms, of kind of group norms, will help you to start to shape your thinking and maybe even to frame the conversation with your team members.
So a quick recap, I very quickly talk you through openness and honesty, taking responsibility, working with others, following the rules and use of resources. Well, the cafe is getting full and I need to go, but if you'd like to stay a bit longer at the table, how about thinking through the behavior in your team, whether you're all in one physical space or distributed or bit of both? How about thinking through that behavior and having a little mental evaluation of your team norms? Are they helping your work?
Are there any unspoken rules, any ways in which things are done that you think, oh, you could do with changing that, that's not helpful? And if you're looking at changing anything, I can think of two ways in which you can do that. Having a conversation with your team or by starting to role model a different kind of behavior. Your behavior as a manager is in the spotlight and sometimes you and your reactions to others behaviors will be the barometer of what behavior is acceptable or not.
And even though I've got to go now, I'd love to hear whether you have indeed tackled unhelpful norms in your team and how you went about it. Because of course, how we go about tackling any of this will be completely different and you will probably have a different way than any of the ones I've mentioned, which could be of help to other listeners. So I'd love to hear from you and especially also about what team norms you are proud of. So if you'd like to get in touch, you can comment on the blog at managementcafepodcast.com and then you can find the script for this episode and you can subscribe our email if you want.
Oh, you can subscribe to this podcast via your podcast app and if you want to check out the script, you can just tap on the artwork if you're listening to this through your phone or a podcast, well, an iPod. And if you want to check out other podcasts and blog posts about the future of work and managing virtual teams or those in transition, head over to virtualnotdistant.com and please get in touch if you have any questions or any thoughts. And yes, I almost forgot, I have a small book recommendation for you today. The subject matter is a bit broader than what we cover in this cafe, but I think you'll find it interesting.
The book is The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Arelli and it explains why a lot of our behaviour both in and out of work seems irrational at times. And it asks important questions about why we continue to create environments that squash people's motivation at work. Plus Arelli is a great storyteller. So if you enjoy his book, he's got a few more.
And if you don't fancy reading, but would like to check out his work, he's got a couple of TED talks. The name again is Dan Arelli. Okay, now I'm off. I hope you enjoy your day and I'll see you soon.