Team agreements

Commitments a team makes about how it communicates, disagrees, and repairs.

The purpose: to create psychological safety when individual capacity runs short.

The six agreements

01
Accepting a dialectical philosophy
No team member holds absolute truth.

Disagreement is expected – the goal is synthesis through examination. When there's conflict, we search for why each position makes sense and what alternative perspectives are available.

02
Consulting with the person, not about them
People speak for themselves.

When someone has a problem with another person or another team, we help them raise it themselves rather than raising it for them. This treats people as capable of handling their own relationships, and keeps the conversation with the people it belongs to.

03
Not expecting consistency
Differences in approach, timing, and response are expected.

Alignment means understanding why we differ, not eliminating the difference.

04
Recognizing different limits
People have different regulation thresholds and limits.

We name our limits directly and do not interpret them as weakness or lack of commitment.

05
Searching for non-pejorative interpretations
We interpret behavior before we evaluate it.

Before attributing intent, we generate non-pejorative, phenomenologically empathic explanations that are:

  • grounded in observable data
  • consistent with the individual's context
  • free of unnecessary judgment
06
Acknowledging fallibility
Everyone is fallible.

We will all break these agreements. When we do, we name it directly and address it without avoidance. The goal is to return to effective behavior quickly and continue the work.

How to adopt them

01
Read them together
Say what each one means on your team, in your words.
02
Name the one that's most challenging for your team
Most teams have a standing weak spot.
03
Decide what happens when one gets broken
Who says something, how soon, and to whom.
04
Revisit them on a schedule
Not only after something goes wrong.

Why it's helpful

Disagreement, limits, and error happen on every team. Agreed in advance, they get named early instead of managed privately.

Structure holds when individual capacity doesn't.

Adapted from the consultation team agreements in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (Linehan, 1993).