Building hospital TQM teams: effective polarity analysis and maximization.

Building and maintaining teams require careful attention to and maximization of such polar opposites (¿polarities¿) as individual and team, directive and participatory leadership, task and process, and stability and change. Analyzing systematic elements of any polarity and listing blocks, supports, and flexible ways to maximize it will prevent the negative consequences that occur when treating a polarity like a solvable problem. Flexible, well-timed shifts from pole to pole result in the maximization of upside and minimization of downside consequences.