Effective teams with Belbin

Created by Hannah Strunge Nissen, February 2022

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.

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . Belbin’s Team Roles is a method of measuring and advising individuals about their behavioral tendencies , 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 . 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 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 .

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.

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 . 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 .

High performance teams

A team’s success depends to a great extent on having a team that sets goals that are not just of personal interest. A team manager should be a team motivator and set up a role for the team and engage in the work. Belbin also defends the idea that high-performance teams need to have a balanced representation of all team roles [6]. But different purposes also require different teams. Firstly, it is important to find a clever and creative Super plant – a person who is super talented in his/her field. Then find out what is required for the team to succeed. The Team Role balance should therefore fit the objectives of the work . Furthermore, Belbin stated in 1993 that mental ability, current values, and motivations, fields constraints, role learning, and personality also influence the team

The compatibility between members in a team is important for effective work in a group but is very hard to assess. Team design can be set out in five principles.

      1.	Members of the team have a valuable Team Role to perform (Belbin’s nine roles) and they can perform well in a functional role by drawing on professional and 
                technical knowledge.

      2.	Each team needs a balance in functional roles (professional and technical knowledge) and Team Roles.

      3.	The effectiveness of a team depends on the team’s ability to acknowledge and adjust themselves and their relative strengths while engaging in their specific Team 
                Role.

      4.	Members will fit for some Team Roles but will probably not succeed in others. A team needs the required range of Team Roles to achieve effectiveness. 

When a new manager looks for a new person for their team, according to the team role term, the fundamental need is to find someone who will fill the Team Role gap in the team, and not just find a person who is equal to the roles already there .

The effective team member

Looking at the first eight team roles, they can be divided into manager teams of two. RI and TW are the two types of negotiators, IMP and CF are the manager workers, ME and PL are the intellectuals, and CO and SH are the shapers. Belbin found out during his studies that those who were contributing most to the team’s performance were the individuals with the plant and implementer characteristics. Good members of a team vary in their natural skills and team roles while adjusting their ability to situations that need skills, he/she do not possess and still maintain effectiveness. Good team members can determine when to emerge into a particular team role. Furthermore, the team member needs to know the timing of when their contribution is most appreciated, typically it is the compulsive talker or the introvert that possesses this skill. The characteristics of a good team player do not only depend on the job they do, but also in how they adapt their actions to fit different situations – they intervene because a job needs to be done . Another important skill as a team member is to be able to switch between different team roles. The skill of switching between roles is a skill that fits more managerial situations. If managers have more than one part to play in teams, it is important to determine what roles that need to be filled out, and by limiting their team roles they will provide more opportunities for other team members to develop their characteristic skills. While a team member needs to be able to adapt to different roles it is also a great quality to create roles for others and make sure to do some of the jobs that others avoid. A good team member is very likely to be added to a team because he/she is seen as someone who does the job and ensures other team members perform. The skill of composing and organizing teams will often be as important as the specialized skill may have .

Diversity in groups

With different qualities and skills, the degree of diversity and cooperation in groups will vary a lot through different sets of groups. Belbin believes that with a great amount of diversity a team will perform better, and the management will improve. Others have found that diversity can contribute to creativity and innovation, but also increase the possibility of a relationship conflict. Diversity can be explained in different categories. There is the surface level diversity, which can be race, age, and gender and there is the deep level of diversity, which are knowledge, skills, and experience . Deep level diversity represents the characteristics from which Belbin is measuring his Team roles. Studies have shown that team members with surface-level diversity are more prone to have lower levels of satisfaction, worse communication, and higher levels of conflict. At the same time, surface-level diversity can be affecting to performance when their deep-level differences also can be applied to the task. For this to happen the individual must be able to bring new information to the organization that is relevant for the projects and still, besides the surface diversity, be able to communicate with the group. Furthermore, it is shown that diversity in groups (compared to groups with similar members) is better at focusing on a task, considering the perspectives of others, and exerting more effort, which can contribute to more creativity and performance.

Limitation and validation

Belbin’s team roles have achieved a great amount of success during the last 40 years. His methods are still used and have evidence for producing more effective teams and management. But in the continuation of his success, there has been conflicting evidence from other studies. A. Aritzeta, S. Swailes and B. Senior has made 43 studies to investigate Belbin’s team role theory. Looking at the results were analyzing the different team roles, it was shown that discrimination between some of the roles was low, which also means that the nine team roles cannot be differentiated from each other. These results created a possibility for making new groups and parring the team roles two by two. This could be done to better discriminate between the roles and is therefore proposed in this article . Most of the studies have shown average or high effects of Belbin’s team role theory and it is therefore concluded that the team role model has acceptable validity, and the model is therefore useful for measuring individual characteristics when interacting with other team members.