How to Establish Ground Rules?

When you are leading some form of group / discussion activity such as a:
- Meeting
- Brainstorming session
- Trainings
- Workshops
- Mediation
- Arbitration
- Other form of consensus building.
then it makes sense to establish so called "ground rules" before you begin.

Ground rules are standards of conduct all participants must adhere to. They are also called: discussion guidelines, community norms, participation agreements, a protocol, or rules of engagement.

Ground rules help improve the efficiency of the entire group process making up the event and also to ensure all parties that they will be treated equally and fairly during the process, by anchoring the respect attendants should have towards each other, towards the facilitator and towards the event during its process.

Simple examples of ground rules are: Respect other people's opinions and Be on time. Here you find a very comprehensive list of examples of ground rules plus useful tips for facilitators.

Depending on the nature of your event, you are advised to strike a balance between covering the most important and common situations and keeping the number of rules as low as possible in order not to over complicate things unnecessarily.

What keeps your employees running smooth? No it is not oil, which is only for bionic people. Besides oil in the work place, that would be uncomfortable explaining in the accident reports! It is how you communicate with them.

• Always let your employees know what they mean to you. While they are working on a task stop by see how their work is progressing; offer advice on how to make it run smoother. Listen to them; ask if they know of a more efficient way too.
• If you are in the office world, or in the retail world this works too! Have a quick meeting before the shift, let your team know where they left off on last shift, give out complements for the previous day, then move on to tell them what is expected today. Also give your staff the opportunity to speak.
• Know your staff: Find out when their birthdays are, always hand write a card and have the staff sign it, if a party is in your budget do that. If not a gift certificate to a restaurant or a slice of cake is always appreciated. Your employees need to know you care about them and their needs.
• Treat everyone equally. Just doing that eliminates any communication issues.
• Whenever a problem arises address it immediately, even if it is not in your busy schedule; And if it is during a busy day do not wait to get the team member alone, just ask them to join you for a minute you need their advice. Let them know what was done was wrong, ask them how they would of corrected it. Tell them how you think it should be corrected by incorporating their ideas. Also this will solve any issues with a team member if they are not performing any you may have to cut them loose. Let them know each time you need to have a short correctional talk with them that this is a verbal warning. Then document it in your day planner.
• Never ever lose your cool. I know sometimes it is hard but showing your team members that, you can be temperamental not only creates communication issues but it might make them afraid of communicating with you.
• The last craze that any Manager wants is complaints submitted from your employees about you to human resources. For my five years as a manager this has never happened, I feel that to be because of my number one rule; Communication, Communication, Communication! If you have hurt employee’s feelings, or created an issue you need to settle it. That’s right, those phone calls from upper management is never fun ones. Plus if you ask your employee or employee’s that you have offended how to correct the situation, they will know that you are human and not just a paper pushing dork.

Communication is more then just speaking too. How your expressions are, speak for them selves. Keep a happy complacent facial expression at any time possible. If you need five minutes in your office screaming in a pillow do so. It is better then making an ass out of yourself by screaming in front of your staff.