BELBIN ® Team-Roles

Neem contact op met uw contactpersoon van Arithmos voor een workshop (duurt ongeveer 3 uur). In de workshop (met huiswerk) wordt van iedere deelnemer een profiel gepresenteerd en toegelicht. Het resultaat na de workshop is dat de deelnemers een beter team vormen en meer begrip hebben voor elkaars gedrag. De aantoonbare focus direct na de workshop is dat de deelnemers meer gebruik maken van elkaars sterke punten. Op deze wijze creëert Arithmos via de inzet van - veelal verborgen en onbenut potentieel - duidelijke meerwaarde voor uw organisatie.

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1. What is a team role?
2. How did the concept originate?
3. How can I find out my BELBIN ® Team Roles?
4. FAQs on BELBIN ® Team Roles & Reports

1. What is a team role?
   A team role as defined by Dr Meredith Belbin is:
   
   • "A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way."
   • Belbin team roles describe a pattern of behaviour that characterises one person's behaviour in relationship to another in facilitating the progress of a team.
   • The value of Belbin team-role theory lies in enabling an individual or team to benefit from self-knowledge and adjust according to the demands being made by the external situation.
     
     
2. How did the concept originate?
   During a period of over nine years, Meredith Belbin and his team of researchers based at Henley Management College, England, studied the behaviour of managers from all over the world. Managers taking part in the study were given a battery of psychometric tests and put into teams of varying composition, while they were engaged in a complex management exercise. Their different core personality traits, intellectual styles and behaviours were assessed during the exercise. As time progressed different clusters of behaviour were identified as underlying the success of the teams. These successful clusters of behaviour were then given names. Hence the emergence of nine team roles.
   
   These are:
   action-oriented roles - Shaper, Implementer, and Completer Finisher
   people-oriented roles - Co-ordinator, Teamworker and Resource Investigator
   cerebral roles - Plant, Monitor Evaluator and Specialist
   
   

   BELBIN Team Role Type	Contributions	Allowable Weaknesses
   PLANT	Creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems.	Ignores incidentals. Too pre-occupied to communicate effectively.
   CO-ORDINATOR	Mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies Goals, protoes Decision-making, delegates well.	Can often be seen as manipulative. Off loads personal work.
   MONITOR EVALUATOR	Sober, strategic and discerning. Sees all options. Judges accurately.	Lacks drive and ability to inspire others.
   IMPLEMENTER	Disciplined reliable, conservative and efficient. Turns ideas into practical actions.	Somewhat inflexible. Slow to respond to new possibilities.
   COMPLETER FINISHER	Painstaking, consientious, anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time.	Inclined to worry unduly. Reluctant to delegate.
   RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR	Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative. Explores opportunities. Develops contacts.	Over-optimistic. Loses interest once initial enthusiasm has passed.
   SHAPER	Challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure. The drive and courage to overcome obstacles.	Prone to provocation. Offends people's feelings.
   TEAMWORKER	Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction.	Indecisive in crunch situations.
   SPECIALIST	Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply.	Contributes only on a narrow front. Dwells on technicalities.

   
   Results from this research showed that there are a finite number of behaviours or TEAM ROLES which comprise certain patterns of behaviour which can be adopted naturally by the various personality types found among people at work. The accurate delineation of these TEAM ROLES is critical in understanding the dynamics of any management or work team.
   
   
3. How can I find out my BELBIN® Team Roles?
   Have you always wondered what your Belbin profile might look like?
   Are you interested in finding out how your colleagues view your contribution to the team?
   

   Dr Meredith Belbin has written many of the outputs of the team role analysis system. He declares:

   "Over the years many people have been interested in the team role theory expounded in my book Management Teams 'Why They Succeed or Fail' first printed in 1981. More and more jobs involve people working together and here the roles individuals play are very important. With our version of team role feedback, we aim to give individuals a fuller insight into their own behaviour in the workplace by taking account of how they are seen by others. The reports include advice on developing a personal management style suited to your team role profile. I hope the information you will receive will not only be useful to you but also to employers and team associates."

   BELBIN® feedback will help you to:

   • Understand your own identity in terms of team roles
   • Manage your strengths and weaknesses
   • Learn how to develop your team roles
   • Project yourself in the best possible way
   • Work more effectively in teams
     
     
4. FAQs on BELBIN® Team Roles & Reports

   What can be gained by identifying people's Team Roles?
   It is difficult to work effectively with people without some reasonable expectations of how they are going to perform. Self and Observer Assessments show how an individual feels and how an individual behaves in a group.

   Why use Observer Assessment?
   Observer Assessments provide independent evidence about an individual's team roles. A Self-Perception test is only as good as an individual's sense of personal realism. Some people answer in terms of how they would like to contribute rather than how they really behave.

   Can I change Team Roles?
   Team roles develop and mature. These may change with experience and conscious attention. Different team roles may come to the fore in response to the needs of particular situations.

   Shall I let people know my preferred Team Roles?
   The sharing of team roles increases understanding and enables mutual expectations to be met. Disappointments will then be less likely.

   What is an Allowable Weakness?
   Sometimes strength in one role has to be bought at the cost of what might be seen as a weakness in another context. For example, a person whose preferred team role is Monitor Evaluator is likely to be objective, impartial and good at carefully weighing up all possibilities to make the right decision. Yet someone with these strengths may well come across as being unenthusiastic or even boring. Any failure to inspire is apt to obscure the true strengths of a Monitor Evaluator. That weakness can be reckoned the price that necessarily has to be paid for the strength and in this sense it is termed allowable.

   What is a Team-Role Sacrifice?
   In some circumstances an individual will need to forego using his/her leading or preferred team role and adopt another in its place. This shift may be rendered necessary due to the lack of a good example of a desired role within the team or because another person is already contributing on common preferred ground. Such a shift from preferred behaviour is known as "making a team-role sacrifice".

   When I know my strongest Team Roles, what shall I do about it?
   A person's overall strongest roles are the ones most appreciated by other people. Develop and play these roles with enthusiasm, because this is where you are likely to make a mark. At the same time note of your lowest roles and find a strategy to avoid exposure by trying to play them. So try to work with people who are strong in the roles in which you are weak.

   What about the reliability and validity of INTERPLACE®?
   Reliability and validity are concepts commonly used in evaluating Psychometric Tests. Reliability is a measure of the internal consistency of a test, while validity relates to whether a test measures what it purports to measure. Internal consistency is highest where test items are repeated, but this narrows their focus. Rather than repeating questions, or dealing with items that are virtually identical, INTERPLACE® seeks to find clusters of useful forms of related behaviour. For example, the Shaper cluster refers to an individual who is challenging, competitive, hard driving, tough and outspoken. However, that does not mean that everyone who is competitive happens to be outspoken. Most Psychometric tests rely on self-reporting. But here the behaviour assumed may not correspond with what others observe. The strength of INTERPLACE® lies in its emphasis on validity, for its counselling outputs are designed to take account of a consensus on observed behaviour. This can be made evident by looking at how far the Observers agree with each other. Formal correlations are, however, difficult to calculate as Observers are not required to make any fixed number of responses. Genuine responses are more easily obtained, and are more valuable, when forced choices are avoided. Differences in perception between the self and others provide valuable leads for action. The demands of jobs also have to be taken into account when assessing validity since the many varied forms of behaviour can be seen as effective or ineffective according to the context. Here the fit between the profile of the individual and the profile of the job plays a key consideration.