When I encourage teams to set ground rules, I’m often greeted with a chorus of complaints.

“Aren’t we all adults here?”
“Aren’t we mature enough to respect one another?”
“Don’t we know how to behave?”

But, that’s exactly the problem—if you have two people on a team, you will have two different perceptions on how a team should work together most effectively. Neither one is necessarily wrong or right, but they are assuredly different. Based on our upbringing and past experiences, we don’t agree on the definition of proper, mature, or respectful behavior.

Exercise for Establishing Team Rules

1) Instruct team members to close their eyes and picture the greatest team they were ever a part of.

Who was on the team? What results did you achieve together? What role did you play in that success? How were decisions made? How did it feel to be on this team?

2) Ask each person to record what he or she saw, felt, and heard during the visioning exercise.

3) Ask each person to share what he or she wrote down with the rest of the team. This is a moment of vulnerability for everyone on the team, and it’s absolutely vital that you hear each person’s unique voice and perspective.

4) Rephrase the common responses that came up. For example:

“Everyone knew why they were there.”
“We were like family.”
“We didn’t always achieve every goal, but we gave it everything we had.”

As you recap what was said, imprint on their memories what it felt like to be part of an extraordinary team.

5) After every person has shared their story, you have to do the tough work of melding these diverse perspectives and recurring themes into clear rules of engagement that all can live by. I recommend keeping the number small and directly related to this team at this point in time. You want to select four to six critical principles that will steer your individual behavior, and your behavior toward one another.

By clearly laying out the expectations for working together to achieve results, you’ll avoid unproductive, unnecessary conflict on your team. Taking the time to set behavioral norms demonstrates that, although results matter, how you arrive at those results also counts on your team.