Developing Team Norms...

Here's a simple question for you:

Does your team have a set of norms? You know---accepted operating procedures that address topics ranging from when meetings will start and end to what kinds of actions members will take when working through conflict or trying to build consensus?

That's a trick question, isn't it?!

After all, every team has norms---whether they are stated or not! Norms are the behavioral patterns that teams fall into over the course of their work----and a critical first step taken by highly functioning learning teams is making those norms public. Early during a school year, teachers define exactly how collaborative work will look. More importantly, groups revisit norms regularly and hold one another accountable for living up to the agreed upon expectations of the group.

I picked up a neat norm-setting idea in a session today delivered by a group of teachers from the Mountain Brook School System in Alabama. When teams begin to work collectively in Mountain Brook, they are asked to consider word pairings that reflect the kinds of shifts that occur when schools restructure as learning communities. Possible shifts include:

1. From student blame to teacher responsibility
2. From individual success to collective success
3. From a focus on teaching to a focus on learning
4. From isolation to collaboration
5. From management to teacher empowerment
6. From independence to interdependence
7. From remediation to intervention

Then, teams are asked to fill in a simple sentence frame for each of these shifts. The sentence frame looks like this:

If a learning community is a shift from _____________ to _________________, in my practice, I will ______________________________________________________.


Here's the frame that my table brainstormed as a sample during the session:

If a learning community is a shift from student blame to teacher responsibility, in my practice, I will need to begin reflecting on data and actively responding to results.


Working through this simple process of reflection can help to encourage teachers to embrace change----and can serve as an ongoing reminder of what it is that is important to a team of teachers. Statements can be posted in team meeting rooms and referenced whenever a team is working through critical conversations with one another or trying to come to consensus around a difficult decision.

What do you think? Are shift statements something that you might try to establish norms of behaviors in your school? Why or why not?

How else can teams work through a norm-setting process?