In our family, since the kids were tiny, there has been an expectation that dinner is eaten together at the table with no technology.
It wasn’t the Waltons, some days it was more like Married with Children, but we persevered. The kids are teenagers now and life is full, so some nights we adjust the timing to be able to eat together. It is not discussed, it just happens.
I hadn’t given it much thought until a family friend shared their disappointment that, on Christmas Day, they struggled to get their kids to willingly sit together for the festive meal. The moaning and arguing got to the point where they stopped trying.
I felt sad their experience wasn’t what they had hoped. I was also grateful we’d set the expectation early and persevered. It had just become how we do things around here.
It’s the same with any team. Accepted norms become the way things are done. When those norms are unclear or unhealthy, they show up in side chatter and frustrations and in the slow breakdown of even the most well-designed workflows.
Under pressure, the connective tissue of a team matters more, not less. Established shared expectations, decision-making habits, communication norms and accountability rituals can be the difference that stops pressure shifting a team from functioning to fractured.
Unintentional positive norms only last while the people who model them are present.
Without that connective tissue, replying to emails when “I can get to it” might feel reasonable in the moment, but watch decisions slow when everyone takes that approach.
When turning up late to meetings, or not at all, becomes accepted, it sends a message: individual priorities are more important than the collective.
In cultures where rude or blunt communication isn’t called out, it gives others permission. Most of the time it’s not malicious, it’s an emotional reaction to pressure. But so often, people have a blind spot until they are on the receiving end.
It is the unspoken norms that can really fracture teams, but they are harder to pinpoint.
Values are often a core element of aligning a team, but everyone brings their own, sometimes unconscious, personal values, professional judgement and view of what matters most. This can be especially visible in purpose-driven environments, but it shows up in every organisation.
When individual judgement repeatedly overrides an agreed process, it only needs to happen a few times before the process starts to lose legitimacy. Decisions become case by case, and people begin to notice whose judgement is supported, whose perspective seems to be dismissed, and which rules seem to apply in practice.
If you’re the person inside the business who notices this first, you’re not imagining it. You’re reading the system.
The problem with accepted norms is that behaviours bubble along until someone crosses the line. If you then only address the incident, you miss the system that nurtured it. The same people are in the teams: what shifted was the pressure, without the connective tissue to hold it.
In culture reviews, when team members are asked what they want to see change in six months, they largely want the same things, regardless of where they sit in the organisation: to work better together and create success. What differs is how people are experiencing the norms, assumptions and behaviours that shape their work.
Each organisation needs a tailored approach, but rebuilding the connective tissue starts by making the norms intentional.
Clarify: leadership articulates what success looks like.
- Articulate the organisation’s priority and how the team’s work is a vital contribution.
- Name the expectation, outcome or metric being used.
- Check for shared understanding so the objective is the same for everyone.
Unify: align to the shared objective.
- Bring the team together to add context to the shared objective so it is owned.
- Recognise the complementary skills and contribution these make that strengthen the team.
- Co-design the standards, behaviours and processes that will be held collectively.
Focus: identify the work that will move things forward.
- Identify the priority work, who is responsible, and how the team will hold accountability.
- Surface the possible unknowns, and agree who and how responsibility will be held when situations fall outside the plan.
- Recognise the relational strengths and gaps in the team, and agree how tensions, competing priorities and emerging signals will be discussed.
The curious thing about unintentional positive accepted norms is that they only seem to last while the people who model them are present.
Negative accepted norms seem to outlive the people responsible and become systemic.
It is intentional positive norms, that are agreed, modelled and held accountable, that endure beyond the original architects.
What’s an accepted norm in your organisation right now that no one’s naming?
If something came to mind as you read this, drop me a message and share it. I’m happy to be a sounding board and help you think through what might be sitting underneath it.
If your leadership team would benefit from a more structured way to work through this, our Ways of Working program gives them a way to name the norms, agree what stays, and rebuild the connective tissue.