I/we have difficulty understanding why one of my/our team members is behaving the way she/he is (G2).
Step 2: Identify Team Roles
To what extent can individuals with completely different skill profiles effectively work together? Belbin (1993) reasons that differences among team members in fact enhances the functioning of the whole group. She defined nine roles that have to be present in a successful team. Every role has its own specific character traits, each role supports another role (Table G.2). Belbin’s team role model explains why certain persons can cooperate very well and other’s less. People normally fulfill more roles in teams, but nobody is good at all roles. There are ‘allowable weaknesses’ in the skill profiles of team members. In effective teams, team members complement one another. Consequently, frustrations, which arise within every team, can be contained easily, when team members are well aware of the function of differences in the group.
Research amongst business students in 2006, hypothesized a number of relationships between the Belbin categories and the Skill Profiles in the Skill Sheets (Landis and Leliveld, 2006). Table G.2 shows in a simplified manner the results of this research project. Noticeable is in particular the strong skill profile of the implementer. This particular category is often also one of the most outspoken categories in group processes. Coordinators, shapers and resource investigators scored well on every skill. So, for these team roles it can be suggested that they approach most clearly the ambition of this Skill Sheet collection, i.e. the ‘integrated’ approach in which all skills are related and considered vital for study, research and management. This link has never been researched in detail, so the first results have to be interpreted with great caution.|
• Identify which of Belbin’s Team Roles are present in the group
• Link these team roles with the research orientation and skill profile of each team member. Table G.2 links the Belbin roles with expected skill and research profiles. Examine to what extent the expected skill orientation in Table G.2 applies.
• Discuss on the basis of these profiles whether the group has sufficient diversity and complementarity in Team Roles and Skill Profiles to work together on this particular project.
Source: based on Belbin (2006), Lander and Leliveld, 2006
