Interest-orientated
When choosing whether to work on goals in the direction of problem solving or interest orientation, most teams (and people) have preferences. In the theory, we call this ‘decision premises’. Teams that like to work on interest situations dislike getting caught up in details and often find the problem-solvers slow, convoluted and unrealistic.
They believe one ought to solve an interest position by viewing a difficult, complicated and complex task from the social dimension. Then their view immediately turns to which interests are at stake, which interests can be served or hurt and who the powerful players are in the respective context. A team which processes its goals in this way is trying to sell its own interests to others as being good for them, too. If that does not work, it seeks consensus or compromise. It seeks to save face, cares for the possible losers (or those which see themselves as such) and is not very dogmatic. Eventually it will give in, even when it is considered factually incorrect. Better a bad compromise than none, is the motto. Accordingly, the team utilises its resources for communicating comprehensively, cultivating or ‘massaging’ key actors, and awaiting the appropriate points in time for delivering certain messages. This poses the danger of demotivating specialists, as they are not really listened to, especially when they say: “You mustn’t, or can’t do it like this!”. Finally, it may come to a solution which doesn’t solve the problem, or creates a new one (e.g. lack of quality). Thus, teams need both abilities, problem solving and interest orientation, and they need the competence to decide when, where and how to use and apply them. But for this there are no rules, it is situation dependent.