How Do Decision-Making Agreements Accomplish Your Team’s Goals in Business and at Work?

When I was first trained as a team-building facilitator at the beginning of my HR career, I was taught how important it was for a team to establish ground rules for working – together – in order to minimize white noise and conflict to expedite productive work.  Moreover, ground rules are objective – as a facilitator, I host the group’s discussion according to their ground rules, and not my personal opinion / values.

When I facilitate strategic planning sessions, some of my favorite ground rules are:

• Speak one at a time – don’t interrupt
• Brainstorming – all ideas on the table
• What’s said here, stays here (if confidentiality is needed)
• Start and finish on time
• Consensus decision-making: that everyone in the group can support the decision outside the room (I usually ask for visual decision-making from each individual: thumbs-up means yes; level-thumb means a neutral position that can support the decision outside the room; and a thumbs-down is a definitive no – the team member can’t support the decision outside the group.

At a recent meeting of a nonprofit near and dear to my heart, the leaders and their Board of Directors shared their Working Agreements with us – as well their commitment to each other to uphold these Working Agreements, in order to move the work of the organization forward, such as:

• Listen respectfully
• Balance participation
• Respect each other’s time
• Larger projects and larger goals come first
• Don’t make it personal.

Frankly, “Agreements” are the tools of collaborative, mature, respectful and self-facilitating adults; “Ground Rules” are a bit old-school and too directive – whether I’m the facilitator or a team member, I want to be collaborative, too – not be the team hall monitor.

How do decision-making Agreements help accomplish your team’s goals, in business and at work?