Belbin Team Roles is a model that can help you understand yourself, your team and ultimately help create successful teams.
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There are 9 team roles that have been identified that make up successful teams. Based on behaviours they are underpinned by an individuals:
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Personality
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Mental ability
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Values & motivations
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Experience
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External influence
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Role learning (understanding your own 'team role'
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Identified through an individuals self perception and observer feedback - they can identify their team role preferences. This is more than a psychometric test will give you - it focuses on how people actually behave.
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It helps understand who is the best at certain tasks, what motivates/demotivates people and how you can get the best from yourself or others.
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Belbin can be used individually or as part of a team to:
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Develop leadership skills
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Create career plans
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Support change programmes
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Recruit the right people
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Build confidence
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Help manage conflict in the work place
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The 9 Team Roles
Shaper
+Challenging, dynamic and thrives on pressure.
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- Prone to provocation. Offends peoples feelings.
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Team
Worker
Monitor
Evaluator
+Co-operative, perceptive and diplomatic.
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- Indecisive in crunch situations. Avoids confrontation.
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+Sober, strategic and discerning. Sees all options and judges accurately.
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-Lacks drive and ability to inspire others. Can be overly critical.
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Plant
Co -
Ordinator
+Creative, imaginative, free-thinking. Generates ideas and solves difficult problems.
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- Ignores incidentals. Too pre-occupied to communicate effectively.
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+Mature, confident, identifies talent.Clarifies goals. Delegates.
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- Can be seen as manipulative. Offloads own share of the work.
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Specialist
+Single-minded, self starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply.
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- Contributes on only a narrow front. Dwells on technicalties.
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Resource
Investigator
+Enthusiastic, communicative and outgoing. Explores opportunities and develops contacts.
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- Over-optimistic. Loses interest once initial enthusiasm has passed.
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Implementer
+Practical, reliable, efficient. Turns ideas into practical actions and organises work that needs to be done.
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- Somewhat inflexible. Slow to respond to new possibilities.
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Completer
Finisher
+Painstaking, conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors. Polishes and perfects.
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- Can be inclined to worry unduly, and reluctant to delegate.
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A team role defined by Meredith Belbin is:
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'A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way.'