The aerobatics would have put a jet fighter pilot to shame. The speed of the pursuit, the sharp angled twists and turns were a spectacle to behold. To stop this, I installed a second feeder a short distance away, and now we had eight feeding positions. Surely, the hummers would quit the senseless acts chasing their colleagues away from such a rich and plentiful source of nourishment. The contrast is striking.
Finches collaborate, hummingbirds compete.
What point on the spectrum a given team on a disaster assignment falls, depends largely to my thinking, on the team leader, or manager. Understanding the backgrounds and strengths of the mental health workers is the first need, then making assignments accordingly will go a long way toward building individual and team morale. When, as is sometimes the case, the numbers of mental health workers far outstrip the possible number of assignments available, the manager's leadership skills are called on to divide the work equitably among team members. And, there are innumerable other ways to optimize utilization of all the team members, and, therefore, optimize satisfactions of volunteer MH workers leaving the disaster experience. Let's emulate the finches, not the hummingbirds.