To drink or not to drink.

A client called me for a meeting. They wanted a presentation on how we were going to conduct a team building program. As we got into the meeting, everybody got sited and as we were talking, 7 cups of coffee came in. I was surprised because it's the month of Ramadan and as I know, generally wherever I go, no drinks will be surfed but I guess there's always an exception. 

Well there were 10 of us in the room and 3 were fasting so it made perfect sense why 7 cuppa's. I opted for plain water, so now it was 6 cups. Once my plain water was substituted, the meeting went on. 

After about 30 minutes, to my surprise I noticed that no one had their drink, not even a sip. Interesting I thought because I didn't take a sip either. 

The meeting went on for about another 30 minutes, and the same thing happen again. This time, it caught my attention. While the meeting was going on, I consciously had my peripheral vision on everyone's cup. I was trying to notice if anyone will just unconsciously pick up their cup and take that sip. 

Until the end of the meeting, no one drank anything and there where 6 cups of cold coffee with a glass of cool water. 

Why didn't anyone drink it? Why not even a sip? Was it that they knew that the tea lady makes bad coffee:)? Was it that the presentation was so engaging that the coffee didn't matter:))? 

Maybe there were some who wanted to drink but were not sure if their actions were inappropriate. So, as usual we wait for others, we wait for the 'social norm' and then we do it. Therefore, even if it's wrong because someone has done it, it gives us the approval that we can do it too. Not really a wise way of thinking but I'm sure the majority of us refer to social norms for a lot of things that we do. In this case, no one even tasted the drink. 

It's interesting to understand the 'social norm' in your organisation. Do people say because the boss comes in late to work, therefore they come in late. Others don't work hard enough, why should they be putting in more. The manager takes a longer break time, therefore they need to take longer break time. 

Social norm can be a very powerful way to enforce behaviour, good or bad. My suggestion would be that it will be great to follow the positive norms and don't participate in the negative norms. Negative norms don't bring any benefits but only complains and justifications. While positive norms improve us and allows us to seek opportunity. 

At the end, I was happy leaving the meeting. I know now that the team that was organising this team building workshop not only wanted to improve their staffs behaviour, so that they can have better norms, but they have a good norm, to begin with.