A FIVE-STEP PROCESS FOR ESTABLISHING GROUND RULES
- Explain the concept: What are ground rules? What are the benefits of making them
explicit? Provide examples of typical group concerns and how ground rules support
effective group functioning. - Brainstorm with the group: Visibly record a list of potential ground rules.
- Clarify and organize: Go back over the list to ensure understanding, then organize the
items into logical categories. - Prioritize: Give each participant 10 votes; ask them to assign votes to the ground rules
they think are most important for group functioning. Use the highest-rated ground rules. - Monitor: Continually remind people of the ground rules. Keep them posted in the
group’s meeting room.
ADDITIONAL TIPS
✔ Consider generating ground rules over a number of meetings, especially with groups
that are unfamiliar with this leadership tool. Even if you only elicit a few obvious
ground rules at the first meeting, post these and refer to them at each successive group
meeting. Also, at the start of each meeting, ask for additional ground rules that people
may wish to add to the list.
✔ When group difficulties arise, use the existing ground rules, and add additional ground
rules as needed to overcome the difficulties. If the list of ground rules becomes too
long, prioritize and bring it back to a more manageable size. Finally, refer to the appro-
priate ground rule(s) when making an intervention in the group. For example, when a
meeting is notstarting on time, you might say something like, “As we agreed in our
ground rules, now that we’ve waited five minutes, we need to begin.”HOW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL
Eighty percent of conflict is due to unclear expectations.Concerns about group meetings can range from participants coming late to groups failing to
reach closure on decisions and plans. Posting a list of ground rules in the group’s meeting
room(s) can result in more effective meetings and sharply reduce frustrations. Here is a sample
list of ground rules.
SECTION 10 TOOLS FORLEADINGTEAMS ANDGROUPS 321
Ground Rules- We will start meetings on time. Late participants will contribute $1 to the charity fund.
- Every meeting will have written Expected Results and an Agenda. We will rotate the responsibility for
preparing these. - Someone will summarize the decision or plan before we move on to a new topic.
- Group decisions and plans will be visibly posted in our meeting room.
- Only one person will talk at a time. No side conversations.
- It is always okay to disagree or to present another point of view.
- If someone becomes emotional over an issue, the next person must summarize before responding.
- If you don’t agree, say so inside the meeting. Outside the meeting, everyone will support all decisions
that were made in the meeting. - As many decisions as possible will be made by consensus.