The team system characteristics discussed here can be thought of as the attributes of the system within the context that is set, given the level of the system that is under analysis.

Remember, these are generic characteristics that are intended as abstract representations of the specific contextual characteristics you are working to improve.

When dealing with specific real-world teams, the goal is to align a characteristic to be improved and an impacted characteristic that you want to resolve from negative impact. If in your analysis you find you can improve a single characteristic without impacting any other characteristics, then you are dealing with a problem that does not require a high level of analysis to solve. When that is the case solve it using available resources without delay. 

The model for using these characteristics is to identify the characteristics that most prominently needs to be improved to address the problem at hand and to identify the characteristic that is most impacted negatively through that improvement. That intersection is the contradiction.