The Belbin Team Roles framework is one of our favourite tools for improving team performance. Dr Meredith Belbin’s model for building successful teams – including leadership teams – is the result of years of research into the importance of understanding team dynamics. Dr Belbin believes that, by understanding your role within a team and playing to your strengths, you can increase your value to the team. With so much evidence that businesses perform better when their key players learn to develop their strengths and manage their weaknesses, it is hard to argue with Dr Belbin’s observations.
We have held Belbin team building workshops for many years, and we believe the Belbin Team Roles method is the most effective way to analyse and understand team dynamics. The theory of Belbin Team Roles has been proven time and time again – in fact, 99% of customers agree that Belbin helps their teams work more effectively. As well as helping you understand and strengthen the dynamics within your team, Belbin Team Roles also offers numerous other benefits, including:
After attending our Belbin Team Inventory workshops, course delegates start to think differently about themselves and their teammates. Our Belbin Team Roles training course helps managers and team members appreciate difference and diversity amongst the team. The Belbin framework also provides them with the tools they need to capitalise on the opportunities that team diversity provides.
The Belbin method does not put people in boxes. Rather, it is an observation-based framework that helps you create stronger, more balanced teams. The Belbin Team Roles framework is flexible enough to help you adapt as your team roles change over time, whilst retaining the analytical structure that makes the Belbin Team Inventory such a powerful training tool.
The Belbin framework is regularly updated to accommodate modern working practices. The Belbin reports themselves are of exceptional quality (we have a selection of sample Belbin reports available to download). Adopting the Belbin method of team development can really make a difference to the way people work in teams. Our experienced Belbin trainers are more than happy to discuss the ways in which our Belbin training courses can help you develop your team and enhance the leadership qualities of team leaders and managers.
Dr Belbin identified nine team roles, which he categorised into three groups: Action Oriented, People Oriented and Thought Oriented. Each of the nine Belbin team roles team role is associated with typical behavioural and interpersonal strengths.
Belbin also defined the characteristic weaknesses that tend to accompany each team role. He called the characteristic weaknesses of team roles the “allowable” weaknesses – often the compliment to the strengths. These behavioural weaknesses are areas that individuals need to be aware of and try to improve.
