Attractors for communication

From a complexity perspective, interaction in workgroups is interesting because people create relations when interacting, and these relations create social systems which are emergent, complex and sensitive to initial conditions. This paper focuses communication in workgroups and the application of a previously developed model for observing and analyzing the performance of business teams made by Losada & Heaphy (2004). The aim with this paper is to bring further understanding of how and if this model can be used to understand verbal communication in teams. The model (ibid) stresses that three bipolar dimensions, advocacy /inquiry, self /other, and most important, positive /negative statements in communication, can be seen as attractors for communication, showing effectiveness in teams. Communication in 28 workgroup meetings in 13 different organisations have been filmed, observed and analysed. The method and analysis was inspired by the model (ibid). The results show that there were small differences between the teams regarding the dimensions of advocacy /inquiry and self /other, but larger differences concerning positive /negative statements. The results raise some problems and questions. The characterisation of statements is problematic using the definitions given (ibid). The kind of meeting observed and the behaviour of the leader seem to affect the results. The predicted proportion between the different dimensions in the model (ibid), isn’t reflected in the results. How could these results be understood? Are the identified attractors really the ones predicting effectiveness? Is communication perhaps more complex than predicted by the model?