How do you form group norms, establish clear goals, and create an environment where everyone feels comfortable and motivated to contribute?

The best way to create a comfortable environment where group norms have to be formed is to influence the leader in the grape vine or the informal organizational structure.

By making the leader a strong Allie you can influence the organisation through the structure they are generally more comfortable with, which is, the in formal friend circle structure. 

This reduces the burden on the one implementing the change, instead of influencing all you have to influence the strongest and the most liked employee and a domino effect is created through out the organization. this could however have its own drawbacks, failure to influence the leader can further creat hindrances in the change process

INTRESTING QUESTION!

FIRSTLY, NEED TO COME UP WITH TASK WHERE EVERY INDIVIDUAL CAN PARTICIPATE INDIVIDUALLY AS WELL AS GROUP DISCUSSIONS.

SECONDLY, TOPIC DEBATES CAN EVN LEAD TO CONCLUSIONS WHERE THE IDEAS CAN BE DISCUSSED N GOALS CAN BE EXEMPLIFIED.

MOREOVER, QA ROUNDS CAN FORM BUILD A GOOD COMMAND OVER THE LANGUAGE AND FEEL FREE TO SPEAK WITHOUT HESITATING.

THESE COULD BE AT A LEVEL OF HELP FOR EVERYONE TO FEEL COMFORTABLE AS WELL AS HAVE CLEAR VISION TOO

 It looks like we are talking about creating a strong corporate culture

1. Create learning individuals and thus ultimately a learning organisation basically employees should constantly thrive to learn new things because of the environment we operate in - ever changing. 
2. Hire the right people for the right job and with the right skills - that is not always easy but having a team of people that have no idea whats going on is always detrimental to any projects or the organisation as a whole.
3. Always Listen to the people around you - more times than i can count i have noticed people deciding on things that they have not even tested to see the responses but each time one empathetically listens to staff you will hear the concerns and possible routes to action.
4.  Adaptability - we talked about the ever changing business environment and so does the work spaces everyone is working in and sometimes it does not need to physically change for one to see the changes. Flexibility is key.
5. Reward good work and great work - this even my grand mother knew how. Though it isn't so simple where one finds themselves trying to save the company financial resources but that isn't not the only form reward available to these professionals. (Non financial rewards work greatly sometimes).
6. Engagement - the tricky one, well doing the work does not necessarily mean it is being done to the extreme capabilities of the individuals doing it. Management needs to make sure that their employees are properly engaged (openness, sharing company goals the good and the bad, transparency). Knowledge is key - what is going on.......