Fresh Tracks often uses ‘Belbin Team Roles’ to help develop teams and allow them to learn about one another’s strengths and weaknesses. But what are they and what do they do? Keep reading as we delve deeper.
What is a Belbin team role?
A Belbin team role, as defined by Dr Meredith Belbin, is: “a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way.”
What Belbin team roles are there?
There are nine different Belbin team roles that you will be scored against. These are
- Resource Investigator – likes researching and finding ideas to share with the team
- Teamworker – is a key team player and identifies ways to support the team
- Co-ordinator – is able to play on the team’s strengths and delegate work if necessary
- Plant – is very creative and is one of the ‘ideas’ people in the team
- Monitor Evaluator – someone who is quite logical and can weigh up different sides and views
- Specialist – has more detailed knowledge about specific areas that can be valuable to the team
- Shaper – can maintain momentum and drive change within a team
- Implementer – likes to work efficiently and create the necessary plan of action
- Completer Finisher – gets satisfaction out of completing and finishing tasks to a high quality
Check out the Belbin website for more information about the strengths and weaknesses of each role.
How do you find out your Belbin team role?
When we run team development days and events, we ususally request that teams fill out a Belbin test on the Belbin website, and then once this data has been collected, each person will be sent a report. It is often useful to print this out so you can easily turn between pages and discuss it with your team.
At our team days, we usually take the team through the report, explaining what it is, what each role is, and how you can start to make use of these. You can split off into different teams depending on who you work more closely with, to see how you can play on each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
What are the benefits of Belbin roles?
If you understand the different roles within the team, you know who likes doing what kind of work. For example, if someone scores higher in Plant, but doesn’t like actioning their ideas, another person in the team who is an implementer and a co-ordinator will help make that idea happen. Knowing this allows you to work most efficiently in a team.
