Establishing a team agreement to drive peer recognition 

With a coach’s help, we’ve done a lot of work around team culture in the last couple years. One of the big things we did was set up a team agreement. We all came together and spent a half-day in the boardroom, using sticky notes on the wall and the whiteboard, to ask “What are our key values in our business? What do we think are some key words that we all understand and come up regularly in our day to day?” Then we built a team agreement all around supporting each other, sharing information, making sure we’re clear in our communication and giving clear instruction and feedback to each other. 

We also make sure we regularly come together for fun, without work distractions, and see that we go above and beyond. So we want to see that other team members are going above and beyond to exceed expectations for each other and our clients. Every month a survey goes out to our team through Monday.com (an operating system that helps businesses streamline their work), and team members nominate another team member and give an example from the last month when they have gone above and beyond for our team agreement. It’s getting our team to actually see what other people are doing, not just sitting in their own little bubble working away. 

The recognition is not just from me as the business owner but your peers. Each month, we anonymously show who won and run that into a quarterly presentation and winner, and an annual one as well with a certificate and gift card. We found that’s a really good way to get staff buy-in and help with the culture and camaraderie between each team player.  

Aaron Kane is an eight-year MDRT member from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Hear more in the May episode of the MDRT Podcast: