An acquaintance who heads a department at a small company was talking to me the other day.  Her department had recently experienced turn over and she mentioned the toll in time/energy/attention that meetings and email chains required just to integrate her team.  It's challenging for a group to work together effectively, particularly when, as my friend shared with me, the only data collected on the new hires relevant to collaboration was the boilerplate 'strengths & weaknesses' questionnaire.  That information too may be available only to someone in HR or a single decision-maker.   

Workplaces are dynamic, and people 'interwork' in subtle ways beyond a simplistic binary. People tend to be like jigsaw puzzle pieces that interlock complementarily in myriad and fluid ways rather than just two.  And 'strengths and weaknesses' exist and are stimulated by combinations and interrelations; they don't manifest in isolation.   Undertaking the PEAK story StoryPathing™ process as a group, for example, in a workshop, is an effective structure for team members to share their formative experiences and to hear those of their colleagues.  Knowing each other's 'stories' reveals evidence of competencies, motivations, and the 'root and fruit' of their decisions  This exercise promotes a culture of positivity and purpose:  we are not merely working together; we are truly collaborating because I have been educated into how to be 'Robin' to your 'Batman' and vice versa; I learn from your story how I can complement you and why to do so in a particular way; and by the same token, you have developed the capability to do the same for me. 

The upshot, finally, is that members of the group/department don't conform their working identity to a static, preconceived ideal.  They inform the group's working identity as an organic outcome of a process of guided reflection utilizing self-expression and meaning-making to create collective agency in the workplace.  "The situation is the boss," because it determines need and how we will 'interwork' to address it.