How to Build a High Performing Team

Using Belbin Team Roles to Improve Team Performance and Results

High Performing Teams

Every organisation wants to have high performing teams. However, high performance levels rarely happen by accident. It’s not simply a case of assembling capable people and hoping for the best.

Instead, strong performing teams are normally built through a mix of effective recruitment, role clarity, team balance and a sound understanding of team behaviour.

Precisely where Belbin Team Roles makes a tangible, practical difference.

Rather than purely focusing on skills, job titles or personality, Belbin helps managers understand how people actually contribute within a team.

Crucially, Belbin Reports can help avoid and resolve common problems in teams. They can highlight where behavioural gaps or overlaps may be affecting or limiting performance.

So, if you’re looking to build a high performing team and improve your team results, lets look at how Belbin can help.

What Makes a High Performing Team?

A high performing team consistently:

Works towards shared goals
Communicates effectively
Makes sound decisions
Adapts under pressure
Delivers results

In practice, high performing teams also demonstrate:

Clear purpose – where everyone truly understands the team goals
Defined roles – when responsibilities and accountability are clear and understood
Constructive challenge – where ideas are questioned and tested, not dismissed
Balanced contribution – the right balance of thinking / social / action behavioural styles the team needs
Consistent execution – reliably turning ideas and plans into action.

In simple terms, a high performing team needs to be focused, aligned and behaviourally balanced.

Common Mistakes When Building Teams

Despite best intentions, many teams are often built in ways that quietly undermine performance. For example:

Focusing mainly on technical expertise

Selecting people who think alike

Confusing harmony with effectiveness

Over-relying on certain individuals

Ignoring behavioural gaps or weaknesses

The result? Teams that may look very strong on paper may struggle in practice. And when that happens, performance issues surface later, usually at the worst possible time.

Highly Skilled Doesn't Guarantee High Performance

You can have a highly capable, skilled group of individuals that fall short of becoming a high performing team.

Typically, symptoms include:

Poor communication
Weak decision-making
Lack of momentum
Unfinished work
Internal tension

This can happen because technical ability and team contribution are not the same thing. True team performance depends on whether the team also has the right mix of behaviours to;

Generate ideas
Analyse options
Organise work
Drive progress
Maintainin relationships
Ensure completion

Without the right balance, even highly talented teams may underperform.

Behavioural Diversity and Team Roles

At its core, a high performing team usually relies on behavioural diversity; different ways of thinking, contributing and working together.

Belbin defines this through nine Team Roles, which cover 3 core areas:

Thinking
Social interaction
Action / delivery

Importantly, success can be about ensuring the team is balanced. Not perfectly balanced, but with the appropriate level of representation of the actual roles that the team needs. And this can significantly vary depending on the purpose of each specific team.

Here’s how the 9 Belbin Team Roles sit within the relevant categories mentioned above:

Thinking Roles

Plant: generates ideas and solves complex problems
Monitor Evaluator: provides objective analysis and balanced judgement
Specialist: offers in-depth technical expertise

Social Roles

Coordinator: clarifies goals and aligns people towards achieving them
Teamworker: supports collaboration and team cohesion
Resource Investigator: explores opportunities and builds connections

Action Roles

Shaper: drives momentum and challenges thinking
Implementer: turns ideas into practical action
Completer Finisher: ensures high quality delivery and attention to detail

Each role brings strengths and, just as importantly to understand, allowable and non-allowable weaknesses. Therefore, high performance levels are typically based on achieving the appropriate team role balance for what the team requires. Not “brilliant individuals working in isolation”.

Understanding High Performing Teams

A team may appear well-structured functionally, yet still fall short behaviourally.

For example, lets a Belbin Team Role Report identifies that a team has sufficient:

Strong creativity (Plants)
External focus (Resource Investigators)
Technical expertise (Specialists)

But it lacks:

Delivery focus (Implementers)
Drive and urgency (Shapers)
Attention to detail (Completer Finishers)

The outcome is usually quite predictable:

Ideas without effective execution
Slower progress
Missed deadlines

By contrast, a high performing has the right mix and team balance including:

Creativity
Analysis
Action
Coordination
Completion

Using Belbin reports deliver greater team role clarity along with many other practical applications.

Using Belbin Reports to Build a High Performing Team

Belbin reports allow teams to move from guesswork to insight. Specifically, they can help identify:

Individual behavioural strengths
Preferred Team Roles
Gaps and overlaps within the team
Differences between self-perception and observer feedback
Different styles in Working Relationships

As a result, team leaders gain a rounded, evidence-based view of how their team actually operates. They can then:

Identify missing roles
Reduce role duplication
Understand potential sources of conflict
Improve overall team balance

In short, teams can be designed for greater performance, proactively, from the outset.

Practical Steps for Team Leaders

If you want to build a high performing team, it helps to focus on:

Looking beyond job titles – understand real team contributions
Assessing team roles – use Belbin Reports for behavioural insight
Identifying behavioural gaps – ensure that all key contributions required are properly covered
Aligning responsibilities – match tasks to strengths
Encouraging difference – value behavioural diversity and varied perspectives
Getting the most from different team role combinations
Focusing on balance – not uniformity
Reviewing the team dynamic regularly – team needs and behaviours can evolve over time – especially when any team members change

Why Belbin Works as a Team Performance Model

Belbin theory is highly practical, easy to apply and can deliver immediate impact.

It can help team leaders and managers answer critical questions such as:

Why might this team struggle to deliver?
Why is there little challenge or debate?
Why might individuals clash?
What’s missing from the team?

Consequently, Belbin can be used to improve areas including:

Team role balance
Communication
Decision-making
Role clarity
Accountability
Delivery

High Performing Teams - The Bottom Line

If you want to build a high performing team, start by looking beyond skills alone.

Ultimately, strong teams are built through greater behavioural balance and a clear understanding of how people actually work together. It’s not all about technical capability.

While some high performing teams happen by chance, much more often, it’s through design.

Want to Build a High Performing Team?

Using Belbin Team Roles can help you identify the strengths, gaps and balance within your team.

Discover your team’s role balance with a Belbin Team Report and start building a truly high performing team today.