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Attitude and AbilitiesSimilar or Different?Selection of New MembersCompetent or Nice?Dismissal ProcedureGuiding Process Interaction PatternsGuiding Process Team ParametersReflection on Interaction PatternsReflection on Team Preservation

Attitude and Abilities

Teams differ in the way they link the belonging to the team to whether they like each other and value each other as equals, as well as to whether they represent similar convictions, values and norms or whether they have a specific competence and can bring to the team a stated, reliable ability to perform (or both!). Does it depend upon the attitude or the abilities?

If one looks for reasons why members leave (have to leave) or why new appointments fail, one can frequently establish that this distinction has played a role. Therefore, declared experts, who are urgently needed by the team, quickly leave the job again, because they cannot relate to the protective familiarity in the team. Conversely, socially competent newcomers don’t get a hold in the team, because they are not recognised as experts and all their communicative art does not help them to get rid of the attribution of incompetence.

Here one can see that an analysis and knowledge about the interaction pattern is helpful to make decisions about the style and how the team parameter is to be shaped. One thing can be said for sure; a recruitment practice, which does not consider the context and only looks at the job requirements, is an approach, which, from a team dynamics viewpoint, can, in all cases, be considered as unfavourable.