So we're talking about the informal team structures that really drive team process and team performance. So far we've talked about team roles and the nine roles that really need to be fulfilled in your team. Next I want to talk about the concept of team norms. Norms are simply the regular behavior patterns that are one, accepted. Two, relatively stable. And three, have become expected by group members. Again, norms they're simply the behaviors that are accepted, stable and expected by group members. We all have norms in our team, whether they've been explicitly identified or discussed. If you ask yourself, well, how are decisions made in my team? How do people operate in team meetings? How do we typically resolve conflict? How do we typically communicate with each other? Whatever your answers are to those questions, assuming your answers would be similar to your team members' answers, those are team norms. Those are the norms that are the behaviors that are accepted, stable and expected by group members. What I wanna talk about, we're not gonna go through all of the possible norms that could exist in teams. It's almost limitless, in some regard. The ones that I've highlighted here in terms of decisions, meetings, conflict, communication. In our work, those are probably four of the most common areas within which we will look at and study, and analyse team norms. And so, as you think about your own norms and the norms within your teams. You may wanna focus on those four areas first, at least to get you started. But what I'm gonna focus on is two things. One, why should you care about team norms? And then second, what as a leader can you do about those norms? So here's the first point that I wanna talk about, which is why should you even care? And this is one of my favorite studies on team norms. Jennifer Chapman and Frank Flynn have done a study, where they looked at both individual perceptions and group outcomes. And they did two different studies. In one study, they had over a 100 MBAs working on team projects. And in another study they had over a 160 executive officers at a large US financial services company. Same study, just two different groups. Both MBAs and executives, if you will. And what they found, is that individuals who perceived that in their teams, they have norms related to cooperation, as opposed to norms around competition. The individuals who were in teams, where the norms were really focused on cooperation. So the accepted, stable, expected behaviors in the teams were much more leaning towards cooperation, as opposed to competition. In those teams where cooperative norms were the dominant perception, the individual members in those teams were more satisfied with their jobs. They were rated by others as performing at a higher level, and they were compensated at a higher level. So really positive outcomes associated with developing cooperative norms in your team, for individual outcomes that we really care about. Both for ourselves, as well as for the members within our team. We want people to be satisfied, we want people to be performing at a high level. Thus, getting rated in terms of high performance by others. And being promoted and compensated at higher levels. So remember, cooperative norms, as opposed to norms related to competition. Now we also saw in this study, an affect at the group or the team level. Where we were looking at the actual norms of the team. And what the impact of those norms happen to be on team functioning and performance. And what we found, is that the extent to which teams had established, expected, accepted norms related to cooperation. Relative to norms related to more competition and individual behavior. The teams that had dominant cooperative norms, they met more regularly early in the team life cycle. Which really help these teams coordinate more effectively over the entire life cycle of the team project. So, in contrast, teams that did not have those cooperative norms. They didn't meet as regularly early in the team process. Leaving a lot of that coordination work to come later. Which created all kinds of crises and problems in terms of team functioning down the road. And so these cooperative team norms, really get you off to a great start as a team. Early, so that you're able to coordinate effectively, so you have that effective process. And you can deliver results at a really high level. And then what we saw is, that translated into higher levels of team effectiveness as rated by different stakeholders. And so again, the importance of establishing cooperation, collaboration-based norms in your team early, is critical. Not only for team functioning and team performance. But also for individual outcomes like satisfaction in job performance that we care a lot about. So that's why you should care, the results are telling. We can really drive some important outcomes by establishing these cooperative-based norms within our teams. So then, what can you do? Oftentimes I'll get leaders that say, look, I've taken on this new team. The norms are all ready well established. They may be effective norms, they may be ineffective norms. But I don't really have a lot of influence. What we're finding in our research is, that's simply not true. It's simply untrue. Leaders have a huge influence on the norms that get established in their teams. Now, so do the team members and their expectations. And so, when you walk into that new team, one of the first things you need to figure out is what are the expectations. What are the norms that exist in these teams. And so what you see here is a study that I find fascinating. Taggar and Ellis, published in the Leadership Quarterly, a study on team norms. Really looking at the impact that leaders had on those norms, relative to team members in the staff. And what they found, is that when the staff, when the team members, all ready have extremely high expectations. In terms of the behaviors that are expected and accepted within the team. When the team members hold themselves accountable, and have high expectations for themselves. The leader, maybe naturally, has less influence on what those norms are. When the team members in the staff have high expectations, they're defining and setting those expectations. They're setting and defining what the norms are. However, when you as a leader walk into a team. Where those norms, those expectations among the staff, among the team members are ill-defined or they're low. You have a huge influence on what those norms are. And that's the gold or the maize line that you see here. Is when your staff has ill-defined or low expectations, and can't articulate very clearly what the norms are. As a leader, you setting high expectations, holding people accountable to a higher standard. A higher set of norms for effective team functioning. How decisions are gonna be made, how we're gonna operate in meetings, or coming to meetings on time, how we're going to resolve conflict. Those sorts of important team processes, when you, as the leader hold people accountable, set high expectations for those norms. You can actually change the norms within your team. So again, if you walk into a situation, if you're lucky enough to walk into that situation where your staff, your team members all ready have high expectations for what those norms are gonna be. You can reinforce those norms, but you're not really going to set a new set of norms. When you walk into a setting where they're ill-defined, or your team members have low expectations of the team. Your expectations are really going to be the ones that define the norms within that team, okay? So you have a big influence on those team norms, okay? Just remember, once those norms get established, they carry over, over time. They're not that easy to change once they get defined. So if you walk into a setting where they're ill-defined, you set high expectations, and you'll define them. But if you walk into a setting where they're all ready defined, and the staff has defined them. If those norms are reenforcing of effective team process and effective team functioning? That's a wonderful setting to be in, you reenforce those, your team performs really well. If your staff or your team members, and this is the irony of this study. If your staff, your team members have established, defined clear norms, expectations, but they're not at the standard that you wanna set? Those are gonna be hard to move. You always gonna take time. You're gonna have an up-hill battle, but you're gonna have to fight it. You're going to have to set those high expectations and over time, move the standard up. But it will take time, because the staff has really defined a clear set of expectations for itself. You'll have to change those over time. But that at least gives you some hopes and optimism for what you can do. And the impact you can have as a leader on your team's norms.
