How To Create an Operating Contract That Helps Your Editorial Team Perform BetterHow To Create an Operating Contract That Helps Your Editorial Team Perform Better
Do team dynamics create struggles for your employees? Do those challenges lead to poor performance? It’s time to put together an operating agreement that addresses behaviors, boundaries, styles, and individual strengths. Here’s how.
July 16, 2025
When editorial team members question their ownership of tasks and processes, their struggle can contribute to the team’s underperformance.
How do you change that dynamic? How do you create an environment of team bliss and growth?
Meet the editorial prenup (or postnup) — your team’s operating contract.
Vast research identifies what makes a successful team. Spoiler alert: Team success is never about the work itself but how the team works together. While jumping to the work component may seem natural, it fails to account for miscommunication and clashing team dynamics.
A team operating contract sets everyone up for success by creating boundaries, outlining shared accountabilities, and mapping individual working styles.
Create your team operating contract with two distinct yet interwoven areas: dynamics and mechanics:
Team dynamics focuses on behaviors — team members’ behavior with each other, people elsewhere in the company, and even those outside the company, such as agencies.
Team mechanics addresses operations and collaborations — team members’ preferred ways to work, best work times, and plans needed to publish the work.
4 ingredients for the editorial team operating contract
Ask your team four broad questions when building the operating contract. Of course, your team may emphasize one area over another, and that emphasis may shift because your editorial prenup is a living document that will change as your team or company does.
You can ask these questions asynchronously or during a team call. I find that a combination of the two works best. Have your team answer the questions on their own. Then, come together to outline the operating contract.
1. How do we show up?
I’m not talking about a team member’s preferred Zoom background or whether the team needs to work in the office three days a week. The answer should reflect what others think of your editorial team and how the team supports one another.
Is the team viewed as a trusted partner? A valued friend? A fixer of problems?
To determine that, ask team members:
How is it to interact with our team?
What emotions best describe us?
What is our mindset?
What adjectives best describe our team?
How do we show up for each other?
You could even have a little fun with these questions: What is our team’s walk-on song? What is our superhero power? What Care Bear (yes, I’m a child of the '80s) are we?
2. What are our boundaries?
Once considered a wall to keep others out, boundaries in the workplace have taken on another meaning. They set and help define what’s OK and what’s not OK. Boundaries help maintain psychological safety, allowing everyone to engage with the work while having space to be their authentic selves. Put simply: You be you, boo.
Ask your team these questions to establish boundaries around time:
What are the working hours? Is there a time everyone needs to be online together?
What are our work-hour boundaries? For example, when on weekends are pings OK?
How much notice is necessary to set up a meeting? What are the exceptions?
As creatives, we all need blocks of time to think. What time works best for the team? What time blocks work best for each of us? How and where do we block time to let others know we are working with our heads down?
What type of turnaround time is acceptable?
What are your sacred blocks of time? For example, you pick up your kids from dance on Thursdays.
Boundaries, of course, are about more than time. They can get deep, too.
Ask your team these questions to help establish psychological safety boundaries:
What’s OK to discuss or do? For example, is it OK to talk about your kids?
What’s not OK to discuss or do? For example, do you prefer not to have your co-workers follow you on social media?
What type of conversations stay in the “vault” — i.e., not shared outside the team?
What’s something you do that you would love others to know? For example, are you prone to resting bitch face while on virtual calls? If so, is it OK for people to check in on how you're doing?
3. What is our working style?
How people work can be different for everyone. For example, I work best in the morning. As a kid, I woke up early to do my homework. Now, I wake up early to do my deep-thinking work before I check email or join meetings. By outlining how your team works best, you can easily assign workloads and communicate with them on their terms.
Ask your team these questions to understand how they can do their best work:
What time of day do you do your best work?
Do you prefer to brainstorm out loud with others? Or do you prefer to do research on your own and come to the table with fleshed-out ideas?
How and where do you like to communicate? What channel works best for you — and for which topics? For example, I work best on Slack for one-on-one conversations and team standups. Email works best for me to share larger strategic discussions.
Are you direct in how you communicate or more laid-back in nature?
Many cringe at the question, “Can I give you some feedback?” If you understand when and how people prefer to receive feedback — good and bad — everybody will be more successful.
Ask your team these questions to understand how they think about feedback:
How would you like to receive praise? Do you like public shoutouts? Or do you prefer praise one-on-one?
How do you prefer feedback for growth opportunities? During a normal one-on-one conversation or a time dedicated to that topic?
Do you prefer written or verbal feedback? Or both?
How do you want feedback about your creative work? Do you like direct edits or comments in the file? Or do you prefer to review feedback together while on a call?
What’s your work love language? For example, do you prefer gifts (e.g., thank-you flowers), words of affirmation, acts of service, or time?
To further assess your team’s working styles and uncover how to work better together, you can have them take tests like DISC, Myers-Briggs, or Enneagram.
4. What does each of us bring to the team?
Individuals make up a team. Each member brings a unique perspective and strength to the team. Take the time to learn what makes everyone tick. What does everyone value? And how can your team help lift each other up when needed?
Ask your team these questions to understand what makes them tick:
What are your individual values? Take this list of values from Brené Brown. Limit each team member to their top 15, then 10, then five, and end with the top three.
What are your top strengths? Take the CliftonStrengths test (formerly known as Gallup’s StrengthsFinder) or this free High 5 Test.
What are your saboteurs or accidental diminishers? What do you do with good intentions that may have a negative impact?
Draft the editorial team operating contract
Now that the team has answered those questions individually and together, it’s time to draft the contract. Unlike many legal contracts, keep the team operating contract simple. I recommend breaking it into two key sections — team and individual.
Team component
Informed by the earlier answers, the team operating contract should include your team’s vision, values, goals, and metrics. It should be shared with others to help your partners better understand how to work with your team.
Then, use the more detailed responses to define the team’s dynamics (behaviors) and mechanics (operations). Keep this section visible only to your team and refer to it often. You may adjust it as new people join the team or the team’s priorities change.
Individual component
When I discussed this idea with others, someone asked if an operating contract should only be built between managers and each direct report. While some items, like a professional development plan, should be shared only between the employee and manager, each member’s individual operating contract should be shared with the team.
Each person should determine what they’re comfortable sharing with their fellow team members. However, I have seen tremendous value in sharing a member’s individual strengths with the immediate team. It breaks down barriers and makes uncomfortable conversations easier for everyone.
For example, one of my team members identified being a rapid responder as their accidental diminisher. They responded quickly with the intention of always being on it, but sometimes did not take the time to think through their response. As their manager, I received feedback that reflected their assessment — their replies could be hard to understand, too direct, or incomplete.
With this knowledge, the employee and I created a plan during our one-on-one meeting. We brought it to the team for their help. Together, we could provide the support this person needed. And since we had the editorial operating contract, we added solutions to help each other out. For example, we added that it was OK to send after-hours Slack messages, and it was also okay for others not to respond until working hours. The rapid-responder employee now had the breathing room to be OK with not replying to Slack messages at a moment’s notice, especially after their working hours.
By taking the time to draft a team operating contract together, you can set each member and the team up for success. It allows you to have a defined plan of action about how the team works together and individually.
Updated from an October 2022 story.
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