Team A conducts meetings that its members find interesting and energising. During these meetings, information is shared efficiently and everyone participates. As a result, all team members have a shared awareness of the issues and concerns that the team needs to address. Before engaging in detailed discussions and problem solving, the team prioritises the various issues on the agenda through a consensus decision-making process. Open and lively discussions lead to creative team solutions to complex problems, and tasks are assigned to individual team members to ensure that the team's decisions are implemented. During meetings, team members encourage and support one another. Leadership is shared and rotates among team members as the topics change. The members leave meetings with a renewed sense of the team's goals and awareness of what each person needs to do to help the team reach its objectives. Team A has been working together for quite a while and has not experienced any turnover of staff in the past year. The members are proud of their team and its accomplishments.

Team B conducts meetings that its members often find tiring, boring and stressful. During meetings, team members are careful about what they say and how they say it. Members have to be sensitive to the different ‘turfs’ being protected around the table. A number of hidden agendas keep the team from being able to make decisions about even small issues. Some team members compete with one another for control of the meeting, while others withdraw and make no attempt to participate in the team process. During such meetings, team members wonder why the team was ever formed and why somebody does not do something to make it work better. Team B has existed almost as long as team A, but has experienced a great deal of staff turnover in the past six months. The members of this team are somewhat discouraged, but they are not giving up. Two team members have been through this before and know that things will improve as soon as the team works through this difficult stage of its development.