#048 – Camp customs – The power of ground rules

Strategically decide your team and meeting freedoms for best results – Develop your own ground-rules for ensuring healthy productive teamwork

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Why take this challenge?

Better quality of relationships and interaction in your team

Improved creative impact from challenge and conflict

Efficient meetings with a positive feel

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

This week’s adventure is about the use of ground-rules as a means to improve meetings and teamwork.

People tend to think of rules as the opposite to freedom, but they are not. Good rules apply common sense and fairness in determining how we can act freely in ways that don’t damage the freedoms of others. And the extent to which others can act without impinging on our own freedoms.

As such, rules can have a massive impact on the effectiveness of teams and meetings. They can make it easier for people to make choices that improve performance. And they can help ensure healthy positive interactions which raise the energy and satisfaction of those involved.

The article Rules for Effective Teamwork explains more on this. It also provides a simple means for teams to generate their own ground-rules.

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Reviewing your ground rules

The green track this week is simply to review the situation on ground-rules in your own work.

Make a list of the teams and meetings that you are a part of. Then place five columns against them, and title them as follows:

Does the team/meeting work well?
Do ground-rules exist?
Are they applied?
Do I (and others) have a copy?
When were they last reviewed?

Then reflect on the list and consider whether you can see a relationship between ground rules and performance.

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Setting new ground rules

The blue-track this week is about developing a set of ground-rules for one of your teams or meetings. To help you with this you will find a helpful Jamboard in the Pack section below.

Use the ‘rules’ article in the pack to explain to the team the potential value of ground rules.

Lead onto the opportunity to think about what we like about how the team interacts and what we don’t. And then to decide whether we want to use this as a contract between us.

Then just follow the guidance on the Jamboard.

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Extension strategy

If your experience of the blue track was positive, why not extend this? Firstly to your other teams or meetings that do not have ground rules in place. And then to those teams or meetings where the ground rules may have fallen out of date and/or favour.

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You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

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Useful links:

Introduction to Leading by Adventure  |  What we mean by spirituality?  |  Why Adventure
Adventures to date   |  I did it, but it didn’t work very well   |  How do I know if it is working
Bringing this thinking into your meetings   |  Adventure & Mental Health
Leading by Adventure community   |  Explore Strategic Support options