BPL – ACCESS – Staff learning support session – 13 July 2001

The types of people in groups and teams

Present:  Clark, George; Leece, Duncan; Peden, Bob; Barnett, Donna;     Rennie, Joan; Bremner, Melissa; McKenzie, Alison; Simpson, Alison.

By the end of this session participants will have:

• a better appreciation of the need for different types of people in groups and teams
• the beginnings of a familiarity with Belbin’s 9 team role types
• an understanding of their own preferred roles in teamwork

Handouts

Team leadership and dynamics

A team needs leadership but this does not of necessity mean that it needs a single, all purpose, dominant leader. Depending on the task in hand, different individuals may serve as leaders. This is obvious when you realise that sometimes there is the need to:

• draw ideas from the team
• orchestrate discussion and agreement
• win consent when the team is faced with a new challenge
• tell the team what to do in an emergency

When people first gather there tends to be much squabbling and not much clarity (all heat and no light). However, as individuals adjust to each other and form into a smoothly performing team, squabbling gets less and clarity increases (all light and no heat eg the four stage model of team dynmics - Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing). But this is not an inevitable process. The chances of it happening can be greatly increased if the individuals concerned have some appreciation of team roles and team dynamics.

Mix and Match

Different experts have different ideas about how many team roles there are. More often than not the different typologies can be mapped on to each other. The handouts present us with the following lists. Try mapping them.

Practical tip on how to 'Map' ideas:

Write the names from the lists on separate sheets of paper using different colored ink for the different lists. You can then put the similar items from the different lists beside each other. How easy or difficult is it to map the different lists on to each other?

• Team Roles and Maintenance roles
• Doers, thinkers and carers
• Coordinator, shaper, plant, resource investigator, companyworker/implementer, monitor evaluator, team worker, completer finisher, specialist
• Initiator, clarifier, information giver, questioner, summariser, supporter, joker, experience sharer, process observer
• Task oriented, people oriented, no-sayer, yes-sayer, regulars, deviants, isolates, newcomers, old timers, climbers, cosmopolitans, locals
• apostle, terrorist, mercenary, dead-wood, loose cannon

No particular list will ever be ‘correct’ but it helps (a) to appreciate that there is a need for ‘different strokes for different folks’ and (b) to have a commonly accepted vocabulary of team role types that makes it easier for a particular group of people to talk about team dynamics.

Note: We found that although Belbin mapped on to the 'Doers, Thinkers and Carers' quite easily the 'Common roles in work group' did not. These types were thought to be cross cutting and not as useful. Alison Simpson thought that the 'Ready for Change' chart should be added to the handouts as she had found that several community groups had laughed out loud when they realized how appropriate they were.