Belbin Team Roles - Explained
What are Belbin Team Roles?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 22nd, 2024
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What are Belbin Team Roles?
This is an approach used to profile people based on their personality types and identify their strengths and weaknesses as team members. This approach separates people into three classes which are subdivided further into nine individual roles.
Each role is discussed below.
How does Belbin Team Roles Work?
A doctor from the UK called Dr. R. Meredith Belbin, proposed this approach and defined team roles as the tendency of people to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a certain way.
The team roles are divided into the following:
(A)Action Oriented Roles
1) Shapers - These are people with the drive and desire to overcome obstacles. They are energetic, challenging, impatient provoking and also enjoy working under pressure.
2) Implementers - These type of people tend to be rigid and lack flexibility. They don't have the vision to see the new possibilities. They are efficient, disciplined, and reliable and tend to turn ideas into viable plans.
3) Completers - This is a type of people who maintain a degree of urgency in their work and ensure that the team delivers on time. They are prone to worry and are painstaking. They don't stand errors of commission or omission.
(B) People Oriented Roles
4) Coordinators - These are people who seem as manipulative since they control how the team moves forward. They are not intellectuals or innovators although they are confident, mature and good delegators.
5) Team-workers -This type of people are very sensitive and shy away from hard decisions. They tend to be diplomatic, have calm tempers and avert fragmentation.
6) Resource Investigator - This type of people are open to new ideas and easily find new opportunities. However, they lose interest quickly and are lazy when not under pressure.
(C) Cerebral Roles
7) Plant creative - These are people who focus on the big picture and avoid unnecessary issues. They are knowledgeable, imaginative and possess problem-solving skills.
8) Monitors-Evaluator -These people choose correctly and don't ignore an important detail. They are also hardheaded and cold so they can't be inspirers.
9) Specialists - This group is made up of people who are dedicated and professionals in their work. However, they don't see the big picture and tend to fuse over minute details.