By assessing the behavioral contributions individuals make to their teams, rather than an abstract psychometric test which will tell you about their personality Belbin looks at how people actually behave in the workplace and which roles they are best suited to take on in a team environment.

-We call these Team Roles

IN THE WORDS OF MEREDITH BELBIN:

” I think we’ve always been striving to find a way of helping people to work together. When people work in effective combinations they achieve so much more than when they’re working alone. But to do that we need a language, and it needs to be a language which is shared and enables people to communicate with one another….

GET THE BEST OUT OF YOUR TEAM

Select people to form high-performing teams
Develop and coach existing teams
Maximise the use of virtual teams
Multi-functional teams
Project teams

IN MANAGEMENT TRAINING

Help managers make the transformation from being effective process managers to becoming outstanding people managers
Give managers a language to be able to talk about the way they interact and interrelate with others. The key aspect to being a great manager is the level of self-insight. When a manager understands their own strengths and weaknesses, they are able to help others use theirs
Enable managers to put together their own great teams!

FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING

Time and time again we hear of professionals reaching their ‘desired role’ only to find them suffering from stress shortly after. The Job role they have been striving and working towards had a title and level of responsibility that the individual wanted, but the actual role itself required particular behaviour that didn’t fit with the individuals preferred Belbin Team Roles. By using the Belbin reports;

Advice can be given and discussions started about whether the desired career path is both wise and ‘doable’
Alternatives can be discussed, and training gap analysis taken
Individuals can raise their level of self-awareness and personal effectiveness

IN RECRUITMENT AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT

The synergy – or lack of synergy – between a person and a job can be mysterious and difficult to explain. Given that two candidates look similar on paper, why is one successful in a role and another not? The language and understanding of Belbin Team Roles can help when:

Making decisions about recruitment or promotion
Providing individuals with the information they need to take the next step on their career path
Putting together graduate recruitment strategies or assessment centres
Trying to identify the gaps in teams which need filling!

FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Conflict usually arises from misunderstanding or lack of communication. Belbin Team Roles can help in areas where discussions can too often include personal attacks and can often exacerbate the conflict.

Belbin and Interpersonal conflict – By comparing individuals Belbin Reports (with Observer Assessments) areas of potential conflict and misunderstanding can be highlighted, and by using the language of Belbin Team Roles, common ground can be established and a successful working relationship identified.
Belbin and Cross-team conflict – Sometimes teams become too inward focused and forget their role within the larger picture. Teams can start to compete with other teams, or start dismissing other team’s suggestions and outputs. This can lead not only to cross-team conflict, but to reduced productivity within organisations.

WITH EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Helping individuals to identify their behavioural strengths in the workplace. Everyone has strengths: talents, knowledge and skills which can be used to advantage at work. In fact, research shows that people who use their strengths are six times more likely to be engaged on the job. Using Belbin as part of an employee engagement programme can:

Help individuals discover their strengths
Ensure that job roles and strengths are aligned
Recognise and use others’ strengths to best advantage
Help teams to understand and consider strengths when assigning team projects
Incorporate strengths into performance reviews and goals
Foster a culture which promotes strengths

FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

“Leaders who can be trusted are self-aware and know what differentiates them from their colleagues. They are not afraid to reveal their weaknesses and know how to adapt their style to different situations” Rob Goffee, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School.

Belbin Team Roles help to identify strengths and weaknesses, so helping individuals make the most positive impact by adapting to the current working environment/working relationship

IN CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Belbin Team Roles helps teams to adapt to changing goals by highlighting collective strengths and minimising weaknesses. This enables the team to be more cohesive yet adaptable in a changing environment

IN A NUTSHELL, USING BELBIN WILL GIVE YOU (NOT AN EXHAUSTIVE LIST!):

Balanced teams based on behavioural contributions, not job titles
Self-aware individuals who can adapt their behaviours according to the situation and business need
The right people doing the right tasks, leading to better-performing teams
Depersonalised team conversations, using a common language to discuss team contributions
Informed decision-making based on fact rather than a gut-feel or hunch
Confidence when making decisions involving people
Insight into behavioural strengths and weaknesses that don’t necessarily show up on a CV

BELBIN FOR INDIVIDUALS

All teams start with the individuals making up that team.

ALL TEAMS START WITH THE INDIVIDUALS.

Before you can start to analyse how your teams are working together, you need to look at each individual’s contribution. So, the first thing you will need to so is to generate a Belbin Individual Report for each person making up the team. Once you have these, it is quick and easy to generate the Belbin Team Report, with no additional input required from your team members.

A Belbin Individual Report will:

Quickly identify an individual’s key strengths and weaknesses;
Show how their self-perceptions differ from how they are perceived by their colleagues;
Contain personalised guidance for the individual about how to manage their behaviour at work and how to make the most of their Team Role contributions;
Provide insights for line managers into preferred ways of working, and the environment in which an individual will thrive;
Suggest working styles that may be suitable for that individual.

Self-aware individuals make for a more harmonious workplace for everyone. Awareness of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses allows line managers to adopt different strategies when managing different people.

On each page of the Report guidance is given about how to use and interpret the information given so that both the individual and their manager can get the most out of it.

BELBIN IS PERFECT TO USE WHEN:

Selecting someone to join a new or existing team;
Making decisions about which individuals to recruit or promote;
Resolving conflicts at work;
Helping managers to ensure that they are allocating the right work to the right people and maximising motivation and performance;
Providing individuals with the information they need to take the next step on their career path;
Building productive working relationships;
Raising self-awareness and personal effectiveness;
Building mutual trust and understanding.