The Three Essential Agreements Every Team Needs

Ambiguous or unspoken agreements often cause pain.

Lots of it.

This is why more and more organizations are creating agreements for expectations of one another. These aren’t employment agreements—these are behavioral agreements. These agreements, or codes of conduct, help an employee both be easy to manage as well as to bring their personal best.

As a Leadership and Culture Coach, I’m often asked by leaders to “change their people.” They want their team to care more, be more present, more accountable, have greater ownership of their thinking, or have greater performance in a specific area. They think they have a sales problem, an operations problem, an attention-to-detail problem, a whatever-you-want-to-call-it problem. But they don’t. They have only one type of problem.

A Leadership Problem.

They aren’t leading their team or the individual’s on their teams to the desired behaviors. And this brings us back to understanding the expectations of one’s behavior, and also, of course, the attention and investment that leaders make in cultivating their team.

If an individual isn’t performing well, look to their leader.

If an individual is dissatisfied with their job, look to their leader

If an individual is feeling disengaged, look to their leader.

Chances are good their leader isn’t investing in them. But wait a sec—doesn’t the individual have to participate too? Yes, we’re all in this together. Let’s get clear on each person’s role in the system.

There are 3 Jobs All Leaders and Employees Have. Let’s talk about who owns what.

Job #1: Foster Engagement Continuously

Leader’s Job:

• Make sure the employee understands the organization’s mission, vision, values and how they connect to them
• Model the mission, vision, values every single day, and talk about them, and praise people for honoring them in their behavior
• Provide an Impact Description for each role so everyone knows how they support the mission, vision, values and how they contribute to the organization
• Pay attention to your people and give them feedback

Employee’s Job:

• Understand the company’s mission, vision, values and how you connect to them
• Be a role model of at least three of the values (let’s assume there are 5-6)
• Bring ideas for how to improve things, solve problems, reduce stress to your leader
• If any of the above are unclear, ask your leader for help
• Give your leader feedback to help them grow their engagement

Job #2: Optimize Execution and Results

Leader’s Job:

• Prioritize and explain why we’re doing what and when and the impact it has for us all
• Help the team understand how to do it if they get stuck and encourage them to seek input
• Optimize High Value-Added Activities, minimize Low Value-Added Activities
• Understand and communicate dependencies, contingencies, and needle movers so all are clear—all need to know what could interrupt execution and how to navigate around it and prevent it
• Keep the communication flowing so everyone can do their best work
• Note the meta-programs and SBM triggers of your colleagues and team, and communicate in them during stressful times

Employee’s Job:

• Think things through, be proactive to ensure priorities are clear
• Be present in your interactions to save everyone time and ensure things are done right the first time
• Understand the outcomes your team and leader want and when, and how they align with your organization’s outcomes and those of other teams so contingencies and dependencies are navigated effectively
• If progress toward outcomes isn’t happening, or if anything’s unclear, ask your leader for help
• If your leader isn’t clearly prioritizing, give them feedback to help them improve

Job #3: Grow and Learn Together

Leader’s Job:

• Help your people map out Individual Development Plans so they can see how they’ll grow at your organization
• Work with Talent/HR to ensure your team has clear, impactful, ongoing learning plans and opportunities
• Help your team collaborate with other teams in your organization
• Give your team opportunities to shine across the organization and increase their status/visibility to all other leaders
• Identify ways the team can be more impactful to the business
• Enroll the team in identifying and optimizing process changes that will improve effectiveness
• Normalize feedback and make it comfortable vs confrontational

Employee’s Job:

• Ask your Leader to advocate for your team individually and collectively with people outside the team
• Take responsibility for shortcomings and give credit to team members when they deserve it—share and celebrate wins
• Point out opportunities for your leader to be vocal about individual accomplishments that might not be visible outside the team
• Envision and plan how you specifically you can deliver value to the organization in a specific period of time—and then do it
• Continuously invite feedback on your performance, and offer it to your leader on their performance
• Note the meta-programs and SBM triggers of your colleagues and leader, and communicate in them during stressful times

The Net-Net

• Behavioral expectations help everyone get the results they want
• Both leaders and their direct reports must agree to your code of conduct—we’re all in this together
• The only type of problem is a Leadership Problem: the leader’s not leading or the direct report isn’t stepping up

This is a rough draft to get you started. What else do you need to add to ensure communication and expectations are clear at your organization? Let me know!

Resources Mentioned:

• Impact Description Example: https://bit.ly/39v9drM
• Feedback Frame infographic: https://smarttribesinstitute.com/the-feedback-frame/
• HVA/LVA Tutorial: https://bit.ly/3bDxDRB
• Individual Development Plan Example: https://bit.ly/33SxiYm