"Why should I bust my tail when Janet surfs the internet at her desk every day?"
"I'm tired of being the only one who fills out invoicing requests. No one else follows the rules."
"When Joe yells at work, no one says anything. I guess that means I shouldn't say anything either."
Today I wanted to write a bit about group norms, and why they matter when it comes to individual motivation and performance.
When I work with a team that isn't thriving, I often hear the kinds of statements listed above. It may not be rational, but it is very common that we resist taking on tasks and actions that our peers avoid.
Then we run into an issue with perception vs. reality. If I perceive that my coworker is slacking off, I am going to get angry if my boss asks me to step it up. If I perceive that my boss doesn't care when bad choices are made, I'm going to feel like I can't speak up either.
In short, our performance and motivation is strongly influenced by our group norms, the unwritten rules that govern how a team operates.
Intellectually, most of us know that saying "If he isn't working hard I can't work hard" is childish, but it runs very much with our human nature. There is a kind of inertia that sets in when you feel the people around you are not following the rules.
My best advice to a group experiencing performance issues is to strike at the root of the matter. No only the behaviors that need to change, but the norms that are driving them.
Yes, I am a "training consultant" but as I've said before here, training is only part of the solution. You need to identify those norms that are holding a group back, point them out in all their ugliness, and help people develop the willingness to challenge them.
Truth be told, it's one of the things I love best about my job. We can get so paralyzed by those "unwritten rules" that sap our productivity and happiness - It's tremendously fun and rewarding to pull the cover off the ugliness and empower people to change it.
Consulting is one of those rare careers where bold honesty and calling things out (tactfully) for what they are is rewarded. I never was very good at keeping my mouth shut just to keep others happy. Just ask my husband! :)
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