Build a Perfect Team

To achieve outstanding results, you must learn to embrace diverse team styles

IN TODAY’S world, there often seems to be a search for perfection in our leaders and managers. We want them to have a big picture focus, be able to manage the details, make sure that practical implementation is completed and counsel team members. And while they are at it, we also want them to be creative.

Unfortunately, such people do not exist, or if they do, they drive people crazy by over-managing or end up so stressed that they leave soon.

The real measure of successful teams is their ability to combine varied skills effectively.

It is the leader’s primary role to make sure this happens.

The Belbin model

How do you take the guessing out of assessing team styles? There are many good systems for doing this but the one that has been around the longest and is globally widespread is the team role model of Dr Meredith Belbin.

Dr Belbin was asked to research why some teams worked well and some did not. This original research at Henley Management College led to five years of extensive work on
team effectiveness.

The outcome was a model that identifies nine types of roles. Although 27 years old, it is still the gold standard of team styles.

What is your “natural” team style?

To be effective in a team, you need to be able to understand your unique style. Most people have two to three dominant styles and there are other styles they are not so good at.

Scrutinise the nine styles outlined and see if you can recognise them in your team:

■ PL: Plant
Very creative; the ideas person

■ RI: Resource investigator
Extrovert; good at making outside contacts and developing ideas

■ ME: Monitor evaluator
Shrewd, prudent and analytical

■ SH: Shaper
Dynamic and challenging

■ CO: Co-ordinator
Respected, mature and good at ensuring that talents are used effectively

■ IMP: Implementer
Practical, loyal and task-oriented 

■ CF: Completer finisher
Meticulous and pays attention to details; also full of nervous energy

■ TW: Team worker
Caring and very person-oriented

■ SP: Specialist
High level of technical skills; loyal to profession as opposed to organisation

All styles are needed

The usefulness of the model lies in the fact that whatever style you are, the team needs you. It is also good to know the styles at which you do not excel.

How many times have leaders given detailed tasks to people who are big-picture oriented, or assigned jobs that required toughness to people who are essentially very harmonious in nature? It does not work.

But understanding a person’s preferred and least preferred styles in a team can enable managers and leaders to get their team performing to its strengths.

A Belbin Team Profile has observer as well as self-perception inputs that enable team members to compare colleagues’ perceptions with their own.

I have been running Belbin workshops for 20 years. While cultures have all styles represented, I have observed that each country seems to have strengths in particular
styles.

Perfect leaders are few and far between, but leaders can build perfect teams by recognising and using their team members’ styles effectively.

– Source: Straits Times/Asia News Network

Article by Philip Merry, founder and CEO of Global Leadership Academy.