Belbin® team role analysis
Belbin® team role analysis
What?
Each person has a natural tendency to participate in group activities and interact in their own way. Belbin® is a tool that helps to better understand teams by making individual roles visible. There are no right or wrong team roles. Each team role has its own strengths and weaknesses, and they are all equally important.
How?
The Belbin® team role analysis consists of self-assessment as well as observer assessments given by colleagues. The end result is a report that gives a broad picture of the individual's ways of working. A team report can also be compiled from the team, which shows what roles can be found in the team and in what proportion.
Based on what?
The Belbin® team role model is based on research on employee and management behaviours initiated by Meredith Belbin and her research group in the 1970s at Henley Business School. In 1981, Belbin published his book "Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail", which is considered one of the best business books in the world. In the late 1980s, he began applying his team role model in recruitment, finding out what kind of people best fit different roles. In 1993, the current team role test was introduced. It has been translated into dozens of languages around the world. The team role model is still being developed to meet the needs of the current working life.
How to use Belbin®?
Using Belbin® helps:
- to build teams whose members' inherent traits and ways of working are in balance with each other.
- team members to know themselves and to modify their ways of operating as needed.
- understand what types of tasks each one is best at.
- to address the different ways in which individuals work with a common language.
- receive information that is not found in the CV.
Uses for Belbin®:
- forming functional teams
- developing team interaction and collaboration
- team conflict anticipation and management
- leadership development
- getting to know job seekers
- career planning and role shaping
When developing management teams, Belbin® highlights the development of co-operation as well as appreciation for how different roles can complement the good functioning of the management team. Colleague assessment as part of Belbin® gives you the opportunity to see yourself through the eyes of others and get feedback on your contribution to the management team.
Management psychologist Mia Aspegrén (translated from Finnish)
The Nine Belbin® Team Roles
Resource Investigator
A team member who is curious by nature, always finding ideas to bring back to the team.
Teamworker
A team member who helps the team to come together. A teamworker uses their versatility to identify the work required and complete it on behalf of the team.
Co-ordinator
A team member who focuses on the team's objectives, works as an organiser and delegates work appropriately.
Plant
A team member who tends to be highly creative and good at solving problems in unconventional ways.
Monitor Evaluator
A team member who provides a logical eye, making impartial judgements where required and weighs up the team's options in a dispassionate way.
Specialist
A team meber who brings in-depth knowledge of a key area to the team.
Shaper
A team member who provides the necessary drive to ensure that the team keeps moving and does not lose focus or momentum.
Implementer
A team member who plans workable strategies and carries them out as efficiently as possible.
Completer Finisher
A team member who is most effective at the end of tasks to polish and scrutinise the work for errors, subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.
