Over the weekend I came across some good material on the concept of how public integrity drives personal integrity. The book explained how in workplace cultures people rarely make agreements clear or gain the proper commitments upfront and instead just assume people will behave how they expect them to behave (or behave like them). But when agreements are made binding by the group it is easier to uphold these by simply recalling the agreement when someone is going outside of it. In other words it's easier (and safer) for people to uphold their own personal integrity when there is a link to a broader public agreement.

While we have ground rules in our meetings i wonder if having public agreements outside of the meetings (in the day to day business) would not go a long way to dealing with conflict / drama and making it more productive. An example of a public agreement in the book was "we will not address the concerns we have with an individual with anyone other than that individual" or "we won't allow things to be held in as complaints. The owner of the complaint has the responsibility to address it early on before it builds"

with care,

Steve Hall
driversselect