Creating a team charter…
Working in a team has two elements: what we do and how we do it. The second part is the team culture you create and this is formed by rituals and a set of behaviours you may share or desire to share. To cultivate what feels comfortable and cohesive as a group it is worth setting some ground rules, guiding principles that you can roll into a team charter.
Providing an agreement people can follow as to how they work together provides processes, responsibilities and obligations.
A good starting point is to ask some key questions:-
- What is important to us as team?
- What values do we have about how we interact and what underpins our actions?
- How do we communicate with each other?
- How do we address conflict with each other?
- How do we want to be recognised as individuals?
- What do we want to put in place to support us in times of pressure?
Brainstorm the questions together and with some of the answers in your mind start to document a charter. A good starting point is to think of the overall purpose of the charter.
To identify citizenship behaviours that link to the charter identify positive and negatives. Ask the team to write down five behaviours that build the team and five behaviours that bring the team down. We shall call these groups “Fair” and “Foul”.
Combined with the first exercise you will have created your team charter.
Please do get in touch if you would like nuggets to facilitate such an exercise bev@nuggetsoflearning.co.uk
