What was determined through the years, was that the catalyst for success in teams was balance, not intelligence.

These observations laid the foundation for what today is known as Belbin’s 9 Team Roles, as the research team set out to determine, what the source of this unpredicted success was. Belbin’s team had presumed inferior teams. What the research team saw though, was several high intelligence teams, failing to fulfill their potential and being outperformed by what Dr. Basically, teams with members of higher intelligence would outperform teams with lower intelligence members. Belbin and his team’s initial thesis was that intellect would be quintessential in predicting success among the team. Nine years, and more than 200 highly qualified teams later, the study concluded with two very important learnings. Belbin was invited to begin his studies at a business simulation game, hosted at Henley Business school. Meredith Belbin initiated a study of teams, based on several international management teams. Building on that, the article will describe, which benefits a project, a manager or the individual itself can benefit from gaining awareness of to what degree the 9 Roles are present in a person.Īs a concluding chapter, the article will describe some commonly used points of criticism against Belbin’s theory along with its limitations. This article will give an overall view of how these personality traits are defined, which strengths and weaknesses each possess, and how to combine them into a high-functioning team. Reading this article, you will obtain knowledge about the foundation on which Belbin built his theory, what his assumptions were and how the theory has evolved. These nine roles, dubbed Belbin’s 9 team roles, can be determined by a written test performed by the group members and delivers an opportunity to determine in which degree each role is present in a person, and by using this knowledge, ease the formation of project groups. Meredith Belbin developed a set of defining eight personality traits, a ninth was added later, that are essential to a high functioning group.

To help ease this comprehensive task, Dr. The success of a project-group has continuously proven to be heavily dependent on the interdisciplinary and interpersonal relations between the group members, finding the right people for the right jobs. How do managers ensure optimal performance from any given project group? These days project-oriented work is commonly used in vast numbers of industries and markets, but that has not come without challenges! Managers are today not only required to be in charge and take responsibilities, but they are also expected to compose and manage teams and project-groups, formed of people, whom they might know very little about.

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