Effective teams with Belbin

The English psychologist Meredith Belbin has developed a team role concept called the Belbin Team Role Inventory, which is made to optimize and balance teamwork. In a well-balanced team using the Team Role Inventory concept, it is possible to weigh out the group's weaknesses and exploit the group's full potential. Belbin's team roles are composed and developed to create high-performing teams. Through years of human behavior studies, Belbin has developed a model that explains how people cooperate and used it to find nine team roles who should be present in teams to ensure efficiency and quality. During the years after Belbin’s team role analysis was revealed, multiple studies have been made for validity and reliability. Stephen Swailes has examined the team roles in different studies attempting to validate Belbin’s theory. Swailes found that the model is relatively valid despite indications of weak discriminant validity among some of the team roles [5].

Introducing Belbin’s team roles

In 1981 the first edition of “Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail” by Belbin was published. It peaked in sales nine years after the first publication and has been popular ever since. Meredith Belbin made the Team Role model concerning management teams. Nine team roles were introduced, and the roles were defined as a pattern of behavior characteristics [6]. People were keen to learn more about their Team Role profiles and discover how to get the advantage of their potential. The Belbin methodology has had great success and is today used in more than 20 countries around the world for both private and public sectors [4].

Dr. Meredith Belbin

Meredith Belbin is educated at the University of Cambridge, where he completed a two-year course in psychology. Afterward, Meredith got a Ph.D. with a focus on the psychology of aging in the industry. Years after his doctorate he began a research project to study management teams in action. Some organizations were selected; games were conducted, and data was collected. This research formed the basis of the Team Role theory. Belbin continued his research, studying intellectual abilities and teamwork, and in 1981 his book on Team Role theory was published.

Application and use

The model is based on nine years of different team composition experiments, personality tests, research, and observations on human behavior [3]. Belbin stated that individuals tend to have distinctive natural roles in teams. These roles are defined as nine roles with different characteristics. The model suggests that successful and effective teams need to have individuals who can perform eight key roles, later in 1993 the model got refined and a ninth role was added [6]. Team roles are defined as a pattern of behavior characteristic of, how a team member interacts with the rest of a team to help the progress of the team's work. If a team fills out all roles, the individuals will complement each other's strengths and limit their weaknesses [3]. Belbin’s Team Roles is a method of measuring and advising individuals about their behavioral tendencies [4], while it is also a tool to help individuals, teams, and organizations to work more effectively. Belbin has developed a guide that can help find strengths and weaknesses within a group and to define and develop high-performance teams. Project managers can use the model to create teams with a complementary combination of individuals with different skills and personalities. A team with all skills represented has the potential to achieve success, however, the team will still need to be managed properly to obtain their goals [3]. To create a high-performance team, it is therefore important to complete a Team Role inventory of colleagues and examine what the team is possessing and what it is missing. Belbin Interplace [9] is a website, which can be used for recruitment and providing individual profiles. The website has been used for recruitment to ensure that team members fit the team and can contribute to more efficient work and better management. Additionally, the website can be used for career development and mentoring. This is done by providing feedback on team strengths and career directions. Belbin can provide information for managers and their teams, to understand, engage and develop different team members [3].

The Belbin structure and team roles

In Belbin’s team role model, a role is defined with six factors: personality, mental ability, current values and motivation, field constraints, experience, and role learning. Furthermore, a team role is defined through its interactions with other team members. Following the nine-team roles are described: 1. The plant [PL]: Creative, imaginative, and unorthodox. The plant is free-thinking, bright, and innovative. PL has multiple different ideas and generates creative ways of marketing but can have some difficulties communicating ideas to others and tends towards introversion. 2. The resource investigator [RI]: Extrovert, curious, communicative, and enthusiastic. The resource investigator is creative just like PL but has a good involvement with people and has skills in using resources. RI is good at exploring new opportunities and makes sure that no stones are left unturned. On the negative side, RI easily loses interest when the initial enthusiasm has subsided. 3. The coordinator [CO]: Mature, confident, and trusting. CO can tend to be a good team leader and is good at making the best use of team resources, by ensuring that all team members’ potential is used to the fullest. CO clarifies goals and makes decisions but can also be lazy and manipulative. 4. The shaper [SH]: Challenging, dynamic, and creates pressure. The shaper succeeds in finding ways around obstacles, is highly competitive and driven, has good humor, and is resilient but the shaper can have a fierce temper, be impatient and provocative. 5. The monitor evaluator [ME]: sober, strategic, and analytical. The monitor evaluator is logical and rational, ME is serious-minded and prefers to think things over, ME will make sure that the team strives to make balanced decisions. ME can be perceived as very direct, dry, overcritical, and skeptical. 6. The team worker [TW]: cooperative, mild, and diplomatic. The teamwork is a good listener and averts friction, TE will support members in their strengths and improve communication between members. TE can be indecisive. 7. The implementer [IMP]: Disciplined, reliable, and loyal. The implementer is realistic and practical, TE is practical, trusting, and tolerant towards others, while the implementer is carrying plans systematically and efficiently. TE can react slowly to new possibilities and is slow in its adaption. 8. The completer [CF]: anxious, conscientious, and scrupulous. The completer is a perfectionist and searches for errors and oversights, TE is actively searching for aspects of work that need more attention and are driven by inward anxiety to get all things right but can worry unnecessarily and be afraid to make mistakes. 9. The specialist [SP]: single-minded, self-starting, and dedicated. One can argue that this is not a team role but rather a functional role. The specialist contributes with technical knowledge and skills and is always very concentrated, but it can tend to isolate from the group. [1][2][3][4]

The team roles can be categorized into three groups. 1. The thinking-orientated roles (plant, monitor evaluator, and specialist). 2. The action-oriented roles (shaper, implementation, and completer/finisher). 3. The people-orientated roles (co-ordinator, team worker, and resource investigator). The team roles have different strengths and therefore perform better during different stages. There are six proposed stages of development: 1. Identifying needs 2. Finding ideas 3. Formulating plans 4. Making ideas 5. Establishing team organization 6. Following through. Shaper and co-ordinator are most needed in the early stages, where completer and implementer are more needed in the later stages [6]. According to Belbin’s team role model, a team will perform successfully if all nine roles are represented in the team. Most people cover two to three of the roles, which means that a team of three to six people could potentially be optimal. Belbin has also made studies on what the optimal team size is, in general, Belbin states that the bigger the group, the greater the pressure towards conformity. It can therefore be advantageous to create smaller teams that will maximize involvement and individual effectiveness [3].