Question Rigid Norms

Group norms are the set of informal and formal ground rules that specify how people interact. The rules help members of the group determine how to behave. Advantages of clear ground rules within teams:

• Meetings and communication are more constructive.

It's normal to expect that these rules will be bent or broken. The transition from unspoken to written norms can be smoother when it is decided in advance how to deal with the offense.

If you don't call attention to that norm, you inadvertently create a second set of norms.

Social and market norms represent two fundamentally different relationship systems that operate by distinct rules:

• Social norms involve unwritten mutual obligations without immediate accounting
• Market norms rely on explicit exc...