In this week's newsletter

• What grocery store checkouts can teach us about meeting norms
• A step-by-step resource for setting norms for the first time
• Warm-up and check-out questions to try with your team this week
• Your weekly bird break

Costco has clear systems. When you get to the checkout, you hand them your membership card, they take your cart and start scanning items. Or wait, do you push your cart? All I know is everyone there knows the process, and let me tell you, if you don't, you will slow everyone down by not being ready to follow it.

It'd be one thing if that's how every store did it, but it's not.

Trader Joe's? Double bags only, push the cart behind the cashier, get ready for cheerful small-talk.

Local produce market in Vermont? Make sure to enter your phone number so you can get discounts and an emailed receipt. Bring a reusable bag or get side-eye.

Self-checkout at a large chain? You better put those items in the bagging area, not directly in your bag!

While you may have a preference for one of these processes, none are right or wrong. They are just collections of norms for how to move through the checkout.

Just like every grocery checkout line, every meeting already has norms. They often differ meeting to meeting (definitely org to org) and much of the time they are implicit not explicit. When everyone knows the checkout process, the line moves faster and the customer feels comfortable coming back. If you want to avoid your team feeling like me at Costco (intimidated!), it helps to set norms explicitly.

At an organization I used to work for, one strong norm was use of the word "check" to signal agreement. Instead of "I completely agree with what Dora said because blah blah," which eats time and adds little new information, people would just say "check." If the meeting leader wanted more detail, they could call on someone who checked. If not, they could use that quick signal of agreement to move on.

When I first joined, I had no idea what was happening. People kept saying this one word and I was lost. It was the Costco checkout all over again! Over my years at that org, I watched it happen to every new person who walked into a meeting for the first time. The norm worked brilliantly, but only when someone took the time to explain it. For example, at off-sites and project kick-off meetings, we would set norms from scratch, and "check" was often one that got named explicitly. What made it work wasn't the norm itself, but the practice of regularly and explicitly setting it.

Before your next meeting, ask yourself

Meeting Minute

​Warm-up question​

This is a good warm-up for any regular meeting. It surfaces implicit norms that are already working (even if the team hasn't named them). It also sets a positive tone before any norms-setting conversation. If the group is new, adjust to: "Think about the best meeting you've been in recently. What made it work?"

​Check-out question​

This reinforces norms by naming productive behavior when people see it. It builds the habit of noticing how others show up. Go first to model the specificity you want: "I noticed Alex asked a clarifying question that helped us get back on track."

​Resource: Setting Meeting Norms​

Norms answer the questions: How am I supposed to engage in this meeting? What are our commitments to one another?

We covered why that matters above. For more details on the when, what, and how, read on and/or click into the full resource.

When to set norms

Not every meeting needs a full norms conversation. But there are key moments when it matters most:

• when a group is meeting for the first time,
• when a new member joins,
• at the start of an offsite or longer meeting,
• and when something is not working.

Once you have aligned on a good set of norms, quickly reviewing them or referencing them at the top of the meeting during “housekeeping” is a good practice.

What to include in your norms:

A useful norms conversation usually touches on five categories. To help you remember them, they spell NORMS:

1. Needs: Physical Comfort. Food, breaks, movement.
2. Offering Input: Questions and Contributions. How do people participate? Ex. raise hands or jump in?
3. Respect and Resolving Differences: Mindset and Conflict. How the group handles disagreement and stays constructive. Ex. "use I statements."
4. Meeting Presence: Attendance and Focus. Cameras, multitasking, what to do if you need to leave early.
5. Staying on Track: Time and Tangents. What happens when someone goes off-topic or you are running over.

How to set them

There are four approaches, depending on your time and context:

• Collaborative process (10-20 min): The group builds norms together. Best for teams that will meet regularly.
• Set by the leader (3-5 min): You bring the list. Best when time is short or norms need to be firm.
• Hybrid (5-10 min): You bring must-haves, then open it up.
• Stop/start/continue (10-15 min): Best for existing teams that need a reset.

Whichever approach you choose, write the norms down where the group can see them and take the time to explain each one. A norm without context may leave folks unclear on what the behavior actually looks like.

What’s your favorite meeting norm in your organization or team?

Reply to let me know!