Welcome to Friday 411, issue #086. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you’ll decrease the squabbling that hinders results.
1 Insight
When working with a team, one of the biggest obstacles to achieving goals is disagreement.
I (Garland) loved playing tag as a child. I lived in a neighborhood that had houses with big back yards and lots of kids my age. Most summer evenings we would gather together to play until our parents yelled for us to come home.
But some nights, the games would end early with heated disagreements. One kid would call someone else a cheater. The two of them would scream at each other until they both stormed off. Those remaining would take sides and accuse others of not playing fair.
Pretty soon, the entire game would crumble, everyone would go home angry until the next night when the bliss of the summer air caused us to forget our squabbles.
Many year later, I realize that the nights that ended with temper tantrums had a common feature: we failed to establish the rules of the game before we started playing. On those night, we inevitably had a brouhaha.
When we determined the rules in advance, we had the most fun.
The Game We Now Play
Thank heavens that we’ve all grown up and don’t have petty squabbles or pouting sessions. Gone are the days when you go home and complain about the people you play with because they didn’t play by the rules.
If you didn’t catch it, that was overt sarcasm. Who are you kidding? Millions of people go home every day and complain about the people they play with.
The only thing that has changed is the game.
We’re no longer playing tag or hide and seek. Instead, we’re playing the game of business.
The Game of Business
Every business is playing a game. In fact, every team is playing a game within the game of business.
Every game has certain features:
- There is at least one objective you must complete to win the game.
- There are obstacles that stand in the way of the objective.
- There are players who are either competing, collaborating, or both.
- The game has clear rules that guide the way that the players compete or collaborate.
All of those features are also true for the game of business:
- There is at least one objective that determines if you’re winning the game. These objectives are often tied to financial numbers.
- There are obstacles — competing businesses, market trends, limited resources, economic downturns, etc. — that stand in the way of the objective.
- There are players who are competing or collaborating. In most business settings, you want your team to collaborate, but this isn’t always the case.
- There should be clear rules for how we collaborate with others.
Unfortunately, most businesses and teams do not have clear rules for how they play the game together. When teams don’t have clear rules for collaboration, people on the same team end up competing with one another.
Why? For the same reason that my friends and I ended our games early so many summer nights: If you don’t establish the rules you’re playing by, everyone starts playing by their own rules.
And when everyone plays by their own set of rules, it feels like someone is cheating or playing unfairly.
Because they aren’t playing by your rules.
Team Operating Principles
If your team is going to win the game of business, you’ll need clear rules and boundaries for how your team will play together. Winning requires Team Operating Principles.
Team Operating Principles (TOPs) are a set of guidelines that every person on a team commits to and holds each other accountable to.
TOPs are usually 5-10 statements about how your team will treat each other, make decisions, and engage in debate with each other. TOPs are sometimes called “Rules of Engagement” or “Team Norms.” Whatever you call them, every team in your business needs them.
TOPs Example
We worked with a client recently who had just formed a new team. The leader of the team hired us to help the team establish the TOPs. Here are some of the rules they identified:
- I take 125% Responsibility.
- We engage in healthy and honest debate to discover the best ideas for making decisions.
- We treat each other with dignity and respect.
- We talk to each other about concerns and issues, not about each other.
- We give each other the benefit of the doubt.
- Silence is agreement.
- The meeting ends at the end of the meeting — not after meetings. Don’t trash or rehash any decisions made.
- We support each other publicly, even if we disagree privately.
Notice that these principles guide the team on what’s fair and foul. For example, if one team member accuses another of intentionally lying, it would violate Principle #5.
How to Create Your Team Operating Principles
There are nine steps you need to take to develop your TOPs:
1. The team leader drafts the TOPs.
It’s much easier for a team to edit a first draft than to create it on their own. Therefore, the team leader should create a first draft beforehand.
2. Explain TOPs to your team and give them a few minutes to read the first draft.
For the remaining steps, you want to move through one principle at a time. It’s easier to think about and debate one principle instead of all of them at once.
3. Starting with the first principle, the team leader explains her/his intention with the rule.
Explain why this principle was important to you and what you were thinking when you wrote it down. Sometimes, the words you wrote don’t convey the desire you had and require rewording for clarity.
4. Give people on the team time to ask clarifying questions.
The first questions that people ask should help clarify what the leader meant. They will eventually debate the principle, but they first need to understand it.
5. Give people on the team the freedom to challenge and edit the principle.
Once everyone understands the principle, they can refine it in two ways:
- First, they can challenge the actual principle. They might not agree with the premise behind it.
- Second, they can edit the wording. People can suggest changes to the wording to make it more clear and/or concise.
6. Once the suggestions for refinement have finished, the team leader makes the final decision about the wording.
It becomes far too burdensome to get the whole team to agree on every word. Instead, the team leader has the final say so.
7. Every person verbally commits to uphold the TOPs.
Once the Team Leader finalizes the wording, she asks every person, one-by-one, to make a verbal commitment.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 for each of the remaining principles.
9. Determine a “fun” way for the team to hold each other accountable.
The TOPs are only as strong as your team’s willingness to abide by them. That means that everyone has to hold each other accountable in a respectful way.
1 Action
Schedule a TOP(s) creation meeting for your team and follow the nine steps. Need additional help? Reach out to us.