How to establish agreements for a high performing and happy team

Establishing agreements for your team has many benefits.

For a lot of teams these agreements are often unspoken, unwritten and un-negotiated, and have become the rules of behavior by default.?

However, when spoken aloud, they allow you as a group to establish the rules you want to live by, aka "the way things are done around here."

But these agreements can’t just be told. For them to really be able to be the key to a high performing and happy team, they need to be decided on together.

By giving your team members a say in these rules, it gives you a baseline to which you can hold each other accountable, as you move forward.

What’s the point in agreements?

These agreements allow you to address behaviour directly, objectively and in a timely manner - ideally, straight away.?

For example, if one of your team agreements is ‘arrive five minutes before any meeting’, and Sarah is two minutes late to two meetings in a row, you can address the behavior directly by saying something in the lines of: “Hey team, one of our agreements is that we will be five minutes early to meetings, do we need to readdress our agreements?”

You'll note that this approach directly addresses the behavior, not the person, it also gives the team a chance to address the actual agreement. So Sarah might respond with, “actually, I'm really struggling to make this time work, can we move it 30 minutes later”, or she may realise that she's holding the team up and make more of an effort to stick to this agreement in the future.

How do you establish agreements?

Start by breaking the process down into two sections.

1. General behavioral agreements

These should be confined to how you want to behave and treat each other at work. This will usually include things such as general conduct, language, celebration times, workplace etiquette, noise in the office, etc.

2. Meeting agreements

These will focus more specifically on meeting etiquette. Because there can be a lot of this, it gets its own section. Here, you'll often have agreements such as being on time, being five minutes early, no phones in meetings, and so on.?

As team leader, you have the job of holding the space and encouraging all of the team members to participate and have their voice heard. Especially those who tend to sit back and be shy in group settings - encourage their thoughts, get their agreements on paper, and ensure that everyone has their say.?

Once you've completed the exercise, you need to get each of your team members to sign the agreement.?

If you still love a hard copy, print it out and get everybody to sign it - or, do your bit for the environment and use a digital signature on an online document.?

By getting everyone to sign it, you’re creating a sense of belonging. You're also creating camaraderie and a sense of accountability as the simple act contracting on these behaviours, unites your team on a more personal level.

And now what?

Agreements are not something that should be decided and then put on the shelf to collect dust.?

Make sure your working agreements are visible and accessible to the whole team so they can revisit them regularly.

And ensure they’re up to date and relevant to your team - so if you gain or lose a member, do the agreements still apply? Do they need to be readjusted? Put it to a vote and ask your team if they’re still happy with them. If not, have them brainstorm, propose and vote on updating or changing the agreements that don’t align with your team anymore.

And if an agreement is consistently flouted, ask your team why. Discuss what might be getting in the way and what you can change - whether that be the agreement or team behaviours.

Give it a go!? Set those agreements and let us know how you get on.