Culture · 5 min read

The unwritten rules: shared beliefs that slow teams down

Every company has values on the wall. Every team also has a second set of rules that nobody wrote down, and those are the ones people actually follow.

Ask a new employee what they learned in their first month, and they won't quote the company values. They'll tell you things like "Don't bring problems to the Monday meeting," "Never disagree with the founder in public," or "If you finish early, you'll just get more work."

These are shared beliefs. Nobody teaches them, but everyone learns them, and they shape behavior more than any policy.

"The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture."Edgar Schein, Professor Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management

Schein, one of the founders of organizational psychology, described culture as layers. On the surface are the things you can see: the office, the dress code, the slogans. At the deepest level are basic assumptions that people take for granted and rarely question. That deepest level is where the unwritten rules live.

How shared beliefs form

Often a single event is enough. Someone admits a mistake in a meeting and is criticized in front of everyone. Nobody says anything, but the whole room learns the same lesson: mistakes are dangerous here. Years later, people who weren't even there still follow the rule.

Common shared beliefs I see in teams:

• "Mistakes get punished here," so problems stay hidden until they're expensive.
• "Leadership doesn't really listen," so meetings are quiet and the hallway is loud.
• "Change always means someone loses," so every new system gets adopted slowly.
• "We're always in crisis mode," so there's never time to plan.

The link to psychological safety

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety is really research about a shared belief. In her 1999 study of work teams, she defined it as:

"a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking."Amy Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999

When that belief is present, people speak up, report problems early and try new things. When it's missing, even talented teams play it safe.

How to find your team's unwritten rules

The answers will show you the beliefs that are really running your team.

How to change them

A shared belief changes the same way it formed: through experience. Telling people "it's safe to speak up" doesn't work if their experience says otherwise. Leaders need to show the new belief, repeatedly. Thank the person who brings bad news. Admit your own mistakes first. And give the team a shared experience that lets them let go of the old rule together. That's the part a group session is designed for.

Esther Katz is a former business executive and a specialist in subconscious beliefs. She runs group sessions on subconscious beliefs for company offsites and leadership teams.