The 9 Belbin Team Roles

A Belbin Team Role is a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a certain way. The nine Team Roles are not job titles, they are not personality types, and they are not a measure of how good anyone is at their job.

The nine Belbin Team Roles are the Plant, Monitor Evaluator, Specialist, Co-ordinator, Teamworker, Resource Investigator, Shaper, Implementer and Completer Finisher. Each one brings something a team needs, and each one carries a potential weakness that comes with it, which can be described or framed as an overused strength.

Most people have two or three Team Roles they prefer, a few that are manageable when the work calls for it, and some they may be better leaving to someone else. A successful team may not need all nine Team Roles present all the time, nor does it need nine people to cover the nine roles.

Over an approximate nine-year period at Henley Management College, Dr Meredith Belbin and his colleagues observed teams of managers compete in a business simulation. Before each exercise the participants were assessed, and the researchers tried to predict which teams would be more or less successful. Observers recorded what people actually did during the team exercise: who proposed new ideas, who questioned them, who planned and organised the work, who kept team morale up.

However, many of the earlier predictions proved wrong, for a particular reason. Teams that were assembled from individuals with higher levels of mental ability were expected to do better, but they often struggled to compete.

Belbin called this Apollo syndrome. Those teams tended to spend more of their energy debating, picking holes in each other’s ideas or reasoning and advocating their own position, and too little of it deliberating, deciding or delivering.

What appeared to separate the teams that performed well was not how clever the members were. It was down to a more diverse and balanced range of behaviours.

The successful teams had someone generating ideas, someone challenging and testing them, someone driving towards the end goal and someone keeping the group focused and harmonious. They had someone turning conceptual plans into task-based actions and someone making sure everything was checked and completed properly.

Over many years of assessments and observations, Belbin and his team were able to define eight core clusters of behaviour - which became known as the Belbin Team Roles. A ninth cluster of behaviour, the Specialist, was identified and added later, and the model was finalised as the nine Belbin Team Roles.

The ground-breaking research was first published in 1981 in the book Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail, and the model has been in continuous use ever since. More than three million Belbin reports have been produced worldwide.

A key principle identified in the initial research still rings true today: a group of the most talented individuals may not be as effective as a talented team.

Belbin Team Roles are often easier to recognise and understand when put into the context of a work-related situation. Three common scenarios come up:

A team with lots of ideas but lacking the ability to close out and deliver them

Meetings are full of creativity, possibilities and the idea pipeline seems to never end. There is an abundance of Plant and Resource Investigator behaviour generating lots of ideas and options, but not enough Implementer or Completer Finisher behaviour to turn ideas into deliverables. The solution here is not about generating fewer ideas, but making sure somebody is responsible for turning these into practical actions and completing them.

The team that agrees in the room but disagrees outside of it

This is a team where relationships all seem to be great and nobody falls out. However, decisions can seem to take forever to reach. Strong Teamworker and Co-ordinator behaviour can hold the team together well, but there is a lack of Shaper behaviour to press for a decision and too little Monitor Evaluator behaviour to ensure any discussions and plans still stack up under scrutiny. Constructive challenge is not the same as conflict. It is often what is needed to make the team work.

The two people who keep clashing - often called a personality clash

In Belbin terms it can be two people competing to make the same contribution. For example, two Shapers both vying to set the direction, or two Co-ordinators both trying to reach a different consensus. The solution is rarely about removing someone, but instead to give each individual more of a distinct focus or set of responsibilities and to agree exactly who decides what.

Much of this relates to an imbalance of certain behaviours in the team more than an issue with the specific people in a team. Find out more about the hidden cost of an unbalanced team.