Guiding Process Team Parameters
A team must regulate how one becomes a member and how one loses this status or gives it up. The guiding distinction lies in the question: “By which means does one belong or not?” No team can avoid the decision about inclusion and exclusion.
Without this decision, the social system would have no boundaries. One would not know which communication belongs to the team and which does not, who to acknowledge, which impulses would affect, endanger, strengthen, define or change one’s own membership. The parameters of a group are thus created by the relevance of a group member’s communications. When a team member is fundamentally passed over, then this is an exclusion from the team, even when that person is still formally a member of the team (see ‘team or group?’).
Therefore, admission and exclusion are, in most cases, connected with clear signals and rituals as well as with (marked) feelings among all parties involved. Admissions and exclusions from the team can be functional and dysfunctional regarding the accomplishment of goals and the maintenance of the team. For counselling, therefore, the question for whom a change within the membership of the team is dreamt about, desired, prevented, longed for or feared, is an essential observation focus