The Belbin Team Roles

The Belbin Team Roles

The Belbin Model is a robust and highly effective concept on teamwork that is the product of many years of research. British psychologist Dr Meredith Belbin has worked to achieve a coherent and accurate system that explains individual behaviour and its influence on team success. These behavioural patterns are called "Team Roles" and these nine roles cover the types of individual behaviour at work in a team.

1. Plant (PL)

Advancing new ideas and strategies with special attention to major issues and looking for possible breaks in approach to the problem that the group is confronting.

2. Resource Investigator (RI)

Exploring and reporting on ideas, developments and resources outside the group, creating external contacts that may be useful to the team and conducting negotiations.

3. Co-ordinator (CO)

Controlling the way in which the team moves forward towards the group objectives by making the best use of team resources; recognising where the team's strengths and weaknesses lie and ensuring the best use is made of each members potential.

4. Shaper (SH)

Shaping the way in which the team effort is applied, directing attention generally to the setting of objectives and priorities and seeking to impose some shape or pattern on group discussion and on the outcome of group activities.

5. Monitor Evaluator (ME)

Analysing problems, evaluating ideas and suggestions so that the team is better placed to take balanced decisions.

6. Team Worker (TW)

Supporting members in their strengths; eg. Building on suggestions, underpinning members in their shortcomings, improving communications between members and fostering team spirit generally.

7. Implementer (IMP)

Turning concepts and ideas into practical working procedures; carrying out agreed plans systematically and efficiently.

8. Completer Finisher (CF)

Ensuring the team is protected as far as possible from mistakes of both commission and omission; actively searching for aspects of work that need a more than usual degree of attention; and maintaining a sense of urgency within the team.

9. Specialist (SP)

Feeding technical information into the group. Translating from general into technical terms. Contributing a professional viewpoint on the subject under discussion.

Renowned corporate psychologist Dr David Marriott (a colleague of Belbin and an expert on his work) is available for detailed team role profiling and reporting for corporate teams and managers.

http://www.sabrehq.com/team_building_articles/belbin-team-roles.htm accessed 9-8-06

Belbin according to (Handy 1985)

Belbin's original book ("Management Teams - why they succeed or fail") is still in print and is a good place to go to understand his concept. Following the wide acceptance of the Team Roles concept, he later published "Team Roles at Work", exploring the practical application of his ideas in more detail. You can also buy team games that bring out each person's roles, as well as electronic or paper-based questionnaires.

Belbin’s teams p.160 Belbin has made a long study of the best mix of characteristics in a team, based originally on research into teams of managers involved in a management simulation as part of a training course. His first surprise was the Apollo syndrome — the discovery that a team composed of the brightest did not turn out to be the best.

He ended up with a list of eight roles that are needed for a fully effective group:

The Chairman. He* is the one who presides over the team and co ordinates its efforts. He need be in no sense brilliant or creative, but would rather be called disciplined, focused and balanced. He talks and listens well, is a good judge of people and of things: a man who works through others.

The Shaper. The shaper is highly strung, outgoing and dominant. He is the task leader and in the absence of the chairman would leap into that role, even though he might not do it any too well. His strength lies in his drive and in his passion for the task, but he can be over-sensitive, irritable and impatient. He is needed as the spur to action.

The Plant. Unlike the shaper, the plant is introverted but is intellectually dominant. He is the source of original ideas and proposals, being the most imaginative as well as the most intelligent member of the team. He can, however, be careless of details and may resent criticism. He needs to be drawn out or he will switch off.

The Monitor-Evaluator. The monitor-evaluator is also intelligent, but it is an analytic rather than a creative intelligence. His contribution is the careful dissection of ideas and the ability to see the flaw in an argument. He is often less involved than the others, tucked away with his data, aloof from the team, but necessary as a quality check. He is dependable but can be tactless and cold.

The Resource-Investigator. This is the popular member of the team, extrovert, sociable and relaxed. He it is who brings new contacts, ideas and developments to the group, the salesman, diplomat or liaison officer. He is not himself original or a driver, and therefore needs the team to pick up his contributions.

The Company Worker. The company worker is the practical organizer. He it is who turns ideas into manageable tasks. Schedules, charts and plans are his thing. Methodical, trustworthy and efficient, he is not ex cited by visions and can be unexciting himself. He does not lead, but is adept at administering.

The Team Worker. The team worker holds the team together in another way, by being supportive to others, by listening, encouraging, harmonizing and understanding. Likeable and popular but uncompetitive, he is the sort of person you do not notice when he’s there but miss when he isn’t.

The Finisher. Without the finisher the team might never meet its dead lines. He it is who checks the details, worries about schedules and chivvies the others with his sense of urgency. His relentless follow- through is important but not always popular.

Too many of one type in a team means a lack of balance; too few roles and some tasks do not get done. In a small team, therefore, one person may have to perform more than one role. The full set is most important where rapid change is involved in the workforce, the technology, the market-place or the product. More stable groups can often get by without the full set of roles.

R. M. Belbin, Management Teams, 1981 in Handy 1985 Box 6.3

Belbin’s Team Roles as seen by (Cartwright 2002)

Belbin saw that an individual had a dual role

• Your own skills

• How you used them in the team

Individuals could have a 'secondary' team role they could display if no other team member had the

role as their primary one.

Allowable weaknesses

One of the key concepts in Belbin's work is that of allowable weaknesses. Every team type has its strengths but each also has an 'opposite side of the coin' weaknesses. Where these weaknesses are such that if they were removed it might also impact on the effectiveness of the strengths then they are allowable and need to be managed rather than removed. An example is the lack of attention to detail in the team type known as a Plant (see later). A Plant naturally creative as he or she is can be forced to concentrate on details but the danger is that the creativity will be lost. A more effective solution is to ensure that there is a team member whose strength is attention to detail (A Completer Finisher) working alongside the Plant as this allows both to play to their strengths.

Belbin's eight team roles

The eight team types which Dr Belbin and his colleagues originally identified

were:

• Co ordinator

• Plant

• Shaper

• Monitor Evaluator

• Implementer

• Resource Investigator

• Team Worker

• Completer Finisher

• Specialist (added later).

Co ordinator (Traits stable, dominant and extrovert).

Co ordinators was originally entitled 'Chairman', a term that was both mis¬leading and would today be considered politically incorrect. It was misleading, as a strong coordinator may well not be the leader of their team. However, it is team leadership that such individuals are best fitted for. The name was later changed to title that better expresses the nature of the team contribution.

The Co ordinator is the one who presides over the team and coordinates its efforts to meet external goals and targets. Co ordinators are distinguished by their preoccupation with objectives and an ability to include all team members in discussions.

Co ordinators are intelligent but not in any sense brilliant and not outstanding creative thinkers: it is rare for any of the creative ideas to originate with them. They often display charisma, a concept to be considered in later chapters under leadership. Co ordinators also possess natural 'people skills.' Co-ordinators are dominant, but in a relaxed and unassertive way they are not domineering. They may, however tend to be manipulative, but in a covert manner Co ordinators tend to trust people unless there is very strong evidence that they are untrustworthy and they are singularly free from jealousy.

Co ordinators have the ability to see which member of the team is strong or weak in each area of the team's function, and they

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