As people seek to integrate a team, they’ll think about the team using a variety of elements serving them. There might be the benefit they hope for from being in that team, or how much they like the work being done.

A crucial question, however, will be how able they are to integrate into the team. A probably automatic reaction will be to evaluate the differences and similarities seen between oneself and the members of the team. It’s a very human reaction to search for how others resonate with themselves and an archaic reaction.

When deciding on joining a team, differences might be signaling potential difficulties. Whereas similarities will signal the comfort of the known and the hope for easygoing relationships. Usually, the differences will be pushed aside assuming that they’ll be easy to overcome. The similarities will be amplified assuming that they’ll be as they are perceived.

Consequently, people often simply jump in without addressing some nagging thoughts about the team and the constellation.

In some cases, teams will allow for a transition period allowing them to know one another. Other teams will start with a phase of negotiation allowing them to shape their future togetherness. When differences appear people might see it as leading to confrontation and experience this phase as challenging. However, highlighting potential differences can provide guardrails enabling the team to remain effective. This can happen for example through sharing non-negotiables. They allow knowing what will be within the limits of the relationship.

Once the team starts negotiating, they need to focus on what everyone can do to become compatible with one another. Remaining focused on similarities and differences would mean wanting to change the other. When doing this they are doing the creative work of understanding what the differences and similarities will require of everyone in the team. The aim is to discover if they can organize themselves into an effective team.

Some of it happens by understanding the rules and norms present in a team. But a lot more happens on the individual level where people learn how to engage with one another to achieve the team’s objectives.

This might not always work. Building on the previous work, individuals can pay attention to when they become entangled in each other’s differences. It is how they give one another a sign that they have lost contact with their respective contributions to the situation.