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1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Over the last few years, team-based work structures have become one of the most
popular and important tools in organisations where increasing competition, efficiency and
effectiveness are the order of the day for both growth and survival. No workplace is immune
from this world of rapid changes and fierce competition. Organisations have therefore
restructured themselves to compete more effectively and efficiently, and thus have recourse to
teams as a better way to use employee talents. A team-based structures generates the positive
synergy through coordinated effort to achieve organisational goals or objectives. This
approach is in line with the human aspect of management that has sought to encourage and
sustain motivation and commitment of staff as a way of enhancing and advancing the cause of
both productivity for the organisation and providing a satisfying environment for employees.
There is no doubt that increasingly, employees are looking for both autonomy and social
interaction at work. Both of these can be incorporated into teams. It is therefore suggested
that in order to have an effective team based structure a shared corporate vision and a strategic
management approach are necessary prerequisites.

2.0 Definition of a Team

2.1 Different school of management have defined team in their specific manner and a
more explicit one is from Katzenbach and Smith (1993), according to whom 'a team is a small
number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose,
performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.' This
definition suggests that one of the biggest challenges of management in organisations is to
create and develop teams that operate within the mission and culture of the organisation at
large.
2.2 Common examples of team can be a football team which display sequential activities
towards a goal represented by a tighter coupling of individuals and a high need for
coordination. This coordination is achieved by planning and hierarchical control. Each player
have to play his part effectively.

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2.3 However, Dr Meredith Belbin, British researcher and management theorist has given
a more explicit definition of a team through a role model and have emphasised a lot on its
function in an organisation.
3.0 Meredith Belbin Team Role Model
3.1 In Belbin's 1981 famous book Management Teams is presented how members of
teams interacted during business games run and amongst his key conclusions was the
proposition that an effective team has members that cover eight (later nine) key roles in
managing the team and how it carries out its work. This may be separate from the role each
team member has in carrying out the work of the team.
3.2 According to Belbin a team is not a bunch of people with job titles, but a congregation
of individuals, each of whom has a role which is understood by other members. Members of a
team seek out certain roles and they perform most effectively in the ones that are most natural
to them.
3.5 Belbin himself asserts that the team roles are not equivalent to personality types, and
that unlike the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is a psychometric instrument used to sort
people into one of 16 personality types, the Belbin Inventory scores people on how strongly
they express behavioural traits from nine different team roles. A person may and often does
exhibit strong tendencies towards multiple roles.
3.6 Developed in 1981, following nine years of study and has become one of the most
accessible and widely used tools to support team building. The team roles were designed to
define and predict potential success of management teams, recognising that the strongest
teams have a diversity of characters and personality types. Has been criticised due to it's
potential oversimplification and 'pigeon-holing' of individuals. However, when used wisely
to gain insight about the working of the team and identify the team strengths and
weaknesses it can be extremely useful.
3.7 Based on research with over 200 teams conducting management business games at the
Administrative Staff College, Henley, in the UK, Belbin identified nine team types. Almost
always people have a mix of roles and will have dominant and sub-dominant roles.
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3.8 Belbin describes a team role as a 'tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with
others in a particular way. There are 3 action oriented roles - Shaper, Implementer and
Completer Finisher; 3 people oriented roles - Co-ordinator, Teamworker and Resource
Investigator and 3 cerebral roles - Plant, Monitor Evaluator and Specialist as presented
below.
4.0 How does Belbin Team Inventory work?
4.1 Individuals within a specified group fill in a Belbin Team Inventory questionnaire. The
results are used to establish Belbin profiles for each individual in the team. The two dominant
scores correspond to the two Belbin roles that individuals can perform within the current
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group. A profile is also developed for the group as a whole, which can be used to compare the
profile of other groups within the same department or similar projects.
4.2 Based on Belbin's model of nine team roles, managers or organisations building
working teams would be advised to ensure that each of the roles can be performed by a team
member. Some roles are compatible and can be more easily fulfilled by the same person;
some are less compatible and are likely to be done well by people with different behavioural
clusters. This means that a team need not be as many as nine people, but perhaps should be at
least three or four. While comparisons can be drawn between Belbin's behavioural team roles
and personality types, the roles represent tasks and functions in the self-management of the
team's activities. Tests exist to identify ideal team roles, but this does not preclude an extravert
from being a Completer Finisher, nor an introvert from being a Resource Investigator. While
Belbin's model has become well known and is taught as a standard part of much management
training, there are many criticisms of both the model itself and the way it is sometimes
erroneously used.
4.3 The research which identified these roles was conducted on established executives
studying at the Administrative Staff College at Henley (now renamed Henley Management
College); they were selected for the prestigious course by their firms who had identified them
as high-fliers expected to go on to senior management. The sample was therefore already
highly selective. Belbin himself points out in his book that many people that might otherwise
have made excellent managers might have de-selected themselves from attending the
programme.
4.4 The exercises given consisted of a game designed to simulate business decision-
making with an emphasis on generating profit in a fictitious company, and a version of
Monopoly specially adapted to remove the chance elements and enable groups to play in
teams against other teams. While Belbin draws on examples from real organisations, the
development of the model is based on the behaviour of subjects in the artificial environment
of the business school exercise. 4.6 Some people attempt to match Belbin's roles with Carl
Jung's eight personality types, with the nine types of the Enneagram of Personality or another
personality type classification. Belbin is at pains to point out that the team roles are not
personality types. He regards them as clusters of characteristics, of which psychological
preference is but one dimension.
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4.7 Automated Belbin reports, available from some management training companies
should not, therefore, be used as the basis for recruitment or promotion decisions. The
weakness of the shaper is that they might become bad tempered/bad humored when getting
things done. The weakness of an Implementer is that they are sometimes slow to relinquish
their plans in positive manner. A finisher can put too much detail into one section and not
follow a specified time frame. A Co-ordinator can be considered overly enthusiastic at times.
Team worker may find it difficult to make decisions on own. The potential weaknesses can
shown together with their contribution as follows:-
5.0 Benefits of Belbin Team Inventory Model (BTIM)
5.1 A major advantage of BTIM is that it does not pigeon-hole individuals into particular
personality types. Individuals may exhibit different behaviours in different groups and roles
and are assigned on the basis of behaviour. This means that the individual can be assigned
multiple Belbin roles in various project teams. Additionally, the individual could be assigned
a secondary Belbin role within the same team based on the second highest score. For instance,
an individual whose daily job is to analyse business requirements takes the Belbin test, and
the top two scores from the test correspond to Monitor Evaluator and Shaper respectively.
This means that given the right opportunity the individual could also lead a team of business
analysts.
5.2 BTIM can also highlight unhealthy imbalances in project teams. For instance, a PMO
function that exclusively reports on the progress of projects and possesses a significant
proportion of Shapers points to a couple of disparities. First, some team members are more
suited to leading projects instead of reporting. Second, the PMO team would be better
equipped to undertake its role if it was staffed with more Co-ordinators, Team Workers and
Implementers.
5.3 Such information can prove invaluable to project leaders, as it can help them plug
resource gaps on mission critical projects during periods of peak workload. Project leaders
can use competent resources that score well via BTIM to perform multiple roles within
projects at very little cost to the project.
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5.4 At a team level BTIM can encourage team members to take on more challenging roles
or try something different. For example, someone who has been leading project teams may
like to take a step back and try to get a deeper look at problem solving. If the individuals
secondary scores on BTIM for Plant or Monitor Evaluator were high then it would be
relatively easy for the person to convince his superiors about this move. The same dynamics
can be used to assess the performance of project teams working on similar projects.
6.0 Conclusion
While working in an organisations, once potential weaknesses, areas of conflict and missing
strengths have been identified, management should consider the options to improve and the
situations.










Team Building
Working Together Towards a Common Goal
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