Each team has its own dynamics that also change with every new member in the team. Everyone of us naturally takes a specific role in the team in terms of behavior and functions. Meredith Belbin has invested several decades into researching the optimal combination of characters to form a perfect, high-performing team.
Currently, the Belbin team role model defines nine core roles that people take over (in three categories).
| Action-oriented | People-oriented | Cerebral |
|---|---|---|
| Shaper | Co-ordinator | Plant |
| Implementer | Teamworker | Monitor evaluator |
| Completer finisher | Resource investigator | Specialist |
Every role has strengths and what is called "acceptable weaknesses". This means that you as a lead must take care that those apparent weaknesses are i) known to the team and ii) do not impact a team (more on that below). You cannot weigh one role against another, you need aspects of all to make a team successful since everyone brings in important aspects and points of view.
Keep in mind, that hardly ever a specific role is found in its pure form in the wild. People will always show characteristics of multiple roles in their team behavior. That's why you can have great teams with less (and sometimes more) than 9 people. As explained below, the overall weight of individual roles in a team must be arranged according to the team's goals and working areas.
Mind also that those roles are taken on by people naturally, only in personal and team development and with experience can the roles each one takes shift.
These roles are associated with getting things done and focusing on the work and value delivered.
Shaper
The shaper is the "head-through-the-wall" person in the team. A shaper will have big influence on the process, is the one to be on pins and needles and will run in front of the team when in a leadership role. The shaper is important to start and keep things going and to getting to core issues in discussions. In a leadership role, the shaper will work on getting anything out of the way of the team to ensure progress.
Acceptable weaknesses
The shaper can become quite impatient if he/she has the impression, that progress is being stalled. They will try to keep things going also if this might hurt feelings of someone. Can easily be provoked when thought to be hindered from progressing and may bring hectic behavior to a team.
Implementer
The implementer is your backbone of getting things done. They will steadily and reliably work on delivering value and on turning ideas into actions. Very pragmatic, does what needs to be done. Implementers are important as the core elements of value creation in a team as long as they are provided with a plan.
Acceptable weaknesses
The implementer is often rather uncreative and needs clear guidance in their work. They do not respond fast enough to new opportunities. A team with many implementers will reliably and efficiently deliver value as long as someone properly structures their tasks.
Completer finisher
As a perfectionist, this is the role that makes sure things are completed before shipping them. Works very detail-oriented, finds out errors and flaws, has high quality standards. Often (but not always), a CF makes a great QA person but can also be good in specification roles. Perfectionists are important to make sure teams keep up their quality.
Acceptable weaknesses
A CF is sometimes perceived as hindrance to the team's speed and may take perfectionism to unnecessary extremes. The CF may also often worry unduly about things that are not too relevant. Also they can be reluctant to delegate tasks to others.
Here are the more social roles that take care that the cohesion and team spirit are kept up.
Co-ordinator
The coordinator is a mature, decisive role who takes over coordinative tasks within an organization. They communicate and coordinate and monitor goals within the team. A coordinator identifies problems and develops strategies to counter them. They also develop and promote people and are good delegators. Co-ordinators are important because they make good leaders but also outside of leadership positions they improve coordination and team development.
Acceptable weaknesses
Co-ordinators sometimes tend to also delegate their own work which can be critically perceived by the team. Also the coordinating and controlling can sometimes be seen as manipulative and the constant control of progress is also sometimes perceived as restricting.
Teamworker
The teamworker is a cooperative and social role. They will often go long ways to ensure harmony and cohesion in the team and to improve communication. In retrospectives, they are often the ones who bring up non-technical topics that cause friction in the team. Teamworkers are important to take care of the inner hygiene of a team and to address social issues.
Acceptable weaknesses
Teamworkers often have issues with taking decisions. Critical situations may overwhelm them and lead to inaction.
Resource investigator
The resource investigator paves the way for the team. They are extrovert, communicative and good in making new contacts. They like to explore new opportunities and pursue new ideas. A resource investigator is important to prepare the team for new directions and to create the perfect environment using their contacts.
Acceptable weaknesses
Just as they are quick to get into new fields, they are also very quickly bored, lose interest and move on to something new. They tend to be over-optimistic and underestimate risks on the path.
These roles are knowledge-oriented and take care of bringing specialized know-how into the team and of further developing technical topics.
Plant
The plant is the idea factory of a team. They are creative, imaginative and unorthodox and have the capability to solve difficult problems. They are good at innovating, also internally in terms of processes and structures. The plant is important as source of renewal and to solve problems that require out-of-the-box thinking.
Acceptable weaknesses
Sometimes the plant disregards important details in their enthusiasm. Must be encouraged to also include the ideas of colleagues. Can be very pre-occupied with his own ideas and has trouble finding the right level of detail to share them.
Monitor evaluator
The ME hovers above the topics that the team works on. They bring in a strategic, high-level view of things. They take care that all options are considered and that accurate judgement is made in a specific matter. The ME is important for the team to not loose the strategic perspective and not to run into dead ends. They also quickly get an overview of a problem.
Acceptable weaknesses
The ME can be weak in their inspirational power as the don't manage to spread enthusiasm. Sometimes they have trouble making decisions because they want to have all the details right first. Can be perceived as judgmental and condescending.
Specialist
The specialist is dedicated to his/her topic. They bring in tremendous amount of specific know-how to the team. Within their expert field, they are very enthusiastic. Specialists are important to bring in specialized knowledge into the team and fill knowledge gaps. Often, they also have broad technical know-how.
Acceptable weaknesses
Very single-minded to their expertise topic. Contributions are done with enthusiasm only in their narrow field. Can often be found dwelling on technicalities. Sometimes lacks social skills as the work of their colleagues is not of interest to them.
Note: this is how I use it, there are surely other ways :)
Once known, the roles your team members have can quickly explain a lot of the behavioural dynamics in your team. You might have constant conflicts between detail-oriented and progress-oriented people. Or you see in some metrics that velocity in the team declines when a certain person is on holiday (or the other way around). Team roles can give you an indication to where this comes from and what you can do to improve the team in that matter.
Belbin provides the only true assessment tool on their website. It uses a self-perception inventory along with observer assessments to ensure validity of your tests. This gives you an extensive personal report and can be used in team assessments. There are ripoff self-assessments to be found in the internet. However, I discourage their use since they do not include observer asssessments and they are using absolute scores instead of a ranking within a statistical population.
If you have the results for your whole team, there are multiple (often retrospective-like) workshops you can have with your team. The key question is how you can reinforce your strengths and contain your weaknesses. Keep in mind that diversity in team roles is key and that the strengths of one role can compensate the weakness of others.
Also the knowledge about the individual roles of your teammates can be used as a friction-avoidance mechanism (see below).
If you have only made the test for yourself, you can use it to reflect if you want to improve in areas where you have low points or if you want to extend the peak in a specific role. In any case, it gives you an indication how you behave in team situations and where you will have natural conflicts with others (see below).
If you make this test with your team individuals, you can develop strategies for their further personal development. If they go for a leadership role (or any other for that matter), the test can give an indication in what aspects of the function role the person will naturally have an easy or hard time.
One huge benefit of the team role assessment is that it raises awareness of natural conflicts that certain roles have with each other. From the descriptions of the roles, some can easily be seen. As an example, a role that pushes forward like the Shaper, Resource Investigator or Plant can feel hindered by very detail-oriented roles like Specialists or Finishers. In turn, they may feel disregarded or be annoyed by the missing attention to detail.
As an exercise with your team, try to identify potential conflicts based on the team's roles. Can be done within a team role workshop or a retrospective.
Without knowledge of the other person's team role, friction can become a personal thing between team members which is a long-term problem for team cohesion, harmony and cooperation.
Knowing about natural conflicts already helps a lot to reduce friction. If people are aware that there is a natural role conflict with one of their team members, it is easier for them to cope with it and find a constructive, professional solution.
You can also actively counter natural conflicts by considering sensible pairings of team members with similar roles or by ensuring that they have some shared peaks in the team role result.
Belbin, R. Meredith "Management teams." Routledge, 2010.
Belbin, R. Meredith "Team roles at work." Routledge, 2012.
The Belbin Association provides education, consultation and online assessment tools to find out and work with team roles.
Reoyo Rodriguez, Ana Maria and López Canas, Roberto and Lucha Martinez, Vanesa, Meredith Belbin Team Roles and Modes of Conflict Behaviour: A Study in Work Teams from the Basque Country Organizations (June 1, 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=736185 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.736185