Second, you must establish some rules on how the SET and its members operate. This will be your first challenge as a team. Let me share with you some of the rules that we developed as a team in order to create clear expectations for our SET.

Rule 1: The SET is the directors’ primary team, period. It comes first and foremost, even above each of the directors’ own teams.

Rule 2: Every member has an equal voice at the table to ensure equality of participation.

Rule 3: All major topics and issues of the department must be discussed with the SET to seek collective input and avoid shallow decisions.

Rule 4: Decisions don’t require consensus, and members must learn to disagree and still commit to decisions once they are made.

Rule 5: The team will speak as a unified voice to the entire department and company.

Rule 6: Members of the SET will hold each other accountable for successfully implementing all decisions.

In addition, it must be understood that the department may need to comply with certain company initiatives regardless of what the SET might decide on its own. In these cases, you, the leader, will address the directives through the SET, not to gain consensus but to agree about the expectations and delivery of the directive. Also, in terms of conflict resolution, my team agreed that I would be the ultimate authority to arbitrate stalemates. (That’s why they pay me the big bucks, right?)

There have been a few times that I have had to make the final decision on a contentious issue, and members of the team have committed to it knowing that I made a decision only after hearing everyone’s opinion equally. For example, at one point we were arguing about the need to quantify performance in each of the business channels that we support, and the team was divided and passionate in their positions. Only after listening to an intense debate did I intervene to tip the scale and make the decision to use metrics in all areas, because of the company’s desire to integrate performance measurements in all areas of the business. I engaged the team members individually in front of their peers to ensure that they would commit to the decision.

I think this made the team realize that their individual voices would be heard. The next time we debated, members were even more open to debate, realizing that a fair and equitable decision would be made.