Belbin Team Roles

So who are you?

Shaper

• Highly motivated with a lot of nervous energy and a great need for

achievement.

• Like to challenge lead and push others to action, can be headstrong and emotional in response to disappointment or frustration.

• Generally make good managers because they generate action and thrive on pressure.

Plant

Innovators and inventors – can be highly creative.

Often enjoy working on their own away from other members of the team.

• Tend to be introvert and react strongly to criticism and praise.

Great for generating new proposals and to solve complex problems.

Co-ordinator

• Ability to pull a group together to work towards a shared goal.

• Mature, trusting, and confident they delegate readily. They stay calm under

pressure.

• Quick to spot an individual’s talents and use them to pursue group objectives.

• Co-ordinators are useful to have in charge of a team with their diverse skills and personal characteristics.

Monitor/ Evaluator

• Serious-minded, prudent individuals.

• Slow deciders who prefer to think things over – usually highly critical thinking

ability.

• Usually make shrewd judgements by taking into account all the factors.

• Important when analysing problems and evaluating ideas and suggestions.

Resource investigator

• Good communicators both with other members of the group and with external

organisations.

• Natural negotiators, adept at exploring new opportunities.

• Adept at finding out what resources are available and what can be done.

• Relaxed personalities with strong inquisitive sense and a readiness to see the

possibilities of anything new.

• Very good for finding resources and heading negotiations.

Implementer

• Well organised, enjoy routine and have a practical common-sense and self

discipline.

• Systematic approach to tackling problems

• Reliable and hardworking.

• Will do what needs to be done whether or not they will enjoy the task.

Team worker

• Supportive members of the team.

• Flexible and adaptable to different situations and people.

• Perceptive and diplomatic.

• Good listeners

• Avoid conflict

• Good at allowing everyone in the group to contribute.

Completer-Finisher

• Have a great capacity for follow-through and attention to detail, and seldom

start what they cannot finish.

• Dislike carelessness

• Reluctant to delegate, they prefer to tackle tasks themselves.

• Good at tasks that involve close concentration and a close degree of

accuracy.

Specialist

• Pride themselves on acquiring technical skills and specialist knowledge.

• Priorities are to maintain professional standards and advance their own

subject.

• Very committed.

• Important in providing the technical expertise and are usually called upon to

make decisions involving in depth experience and expertise.

REFERENCE

Meredith Belbin, Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail (Butterworth Heinemann, 2nd ed., 2004)

There are EIGHT roles here?

Serendipity or planning (ask the tutor) found six people collaborating online in H808, unit 6. I believe that between the six of us all these roles were covered ... not a role each, perhaps two, sometimes three with the 'ball' as we came to see it 'kept in motion' through-out.

Recipe for successful online collaboration?

Treat it as a cook would. Ensure that you have the right ingredients in each bowl.

And who am I?

I know. Which explains perfectly, in hindsight, how I behaved.

Do share.