Using team roles to put teams together
Why is it important to factor in team roles when designing teams? According to Belbin (Belbin, 2010 p. 26), today's organizations tend to suffer from a so-called “cloning culture”. Managers tend to recruit or advance staff who are similar to them. Even entire organisations can have a certain culture or reputation that draws a certain kind of personality to them. The danger here is that it might become increasingly difficult to create diverse teams where the team members actually supplement each other's strengths and weaknesses. In session two we discussed the fact that multicultural teams don´t necessarily have to be diverse, but it can be strongly beneficial to team performance. In research from consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, we learn one possible reason for this, especially in leadership teams.
Increasing the diversity of leadership teams leads to more and better innovation and improved financial performance. In both developing and developed economies, companies with above-average diversity on their leadership teams report a greater payoff from innovation and higher EBIT margins.
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For company leaders, this is a clear path to creating a more innovative organization. People with different backgrounds and experiences often see the same problem in different ways and come up with different solutions, increasing the odds that one of those solutions will be a hit. In a fast-changing business environment, such responsiveness leaves companies better positioned to adapt.
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We surveyed employees at more than 1,700 companies in eight countries (Austria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Switzerland, and the US) across a variety of industries and company sizes. (…) We looked at perceptions of diversity at the management level across six dimensions—gender, age, nation of origin (meaning employees born in a country other than the one in which the company is headquartered), career path, industry background, and education (meaning employees’ focus of study in college or graduate school). To gauge a company’s level of innovation, we looked at the percentage of total revenue from new products and services launched over the past three years.
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The biggest takeaway we found is a strong and statistically significant correlation between the diversity of management teams and overall innovation. Companies that reported above-average diversity on their management teams also reported innovation revenue that was 19 percentage points higher than that of companies with below-average leadership diversity—45% of total revenue versus just 26%.
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Not surprisingly, these organizations also reported better overall financial performance: EBIT margins that were 9 percentage points higher than those of companies with below-average diversity on their management team
Source: Lorenzo et al., 2018. How diverse leadership teams boost innovation. https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation (accessed on 10.11.2020)
As we can see, putting teams together based on their diversity is a good idea, but unfortunately it often does not come naturally to us. Let us take a look at good practices regarding the composition of teams based on the team roles we discussed.
Task: Essential team roles
Take another look at the Belbin team roles table and answer the following question: If you had a small team of three people and, hypothetically, these three people took on exactly three roles – which three roles do you believe are the most essential for almost all tasks?
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While many different combinations of roles, and thus important competencies in a team, can be argued, one example would be that it is good to have someone in the team with the qualities of the "Co-ordinator". This person would be responsible in assigning the different roles of the team members, and allocating the needed resources. While the Co-ordinator is good at connecting to people and having a general overview, this person sometime would lack a the creativity and analytical skills. If the assigned task for this team should have a constant need for innovation, e.g. because it is in a constantly changing market, a "Plant" could play an important role here. Should it be more important to implement expert knowledge into a project, this slot should rather go to a "Specialist". Thus, if we have someone with the competency to motivate and allocate the team's resources, plus someone to bring in the needed know-how or innovation, then what else could be needed would be someone with the drive to set everything into action. This role could go to a possible "Shaper" for example, when there is a high urgency for the task. If less urgency is required, but more accuracy for the task, an "Implementer" could be advised.
Obviously, every team role comes with its own competency and thus important merits to the team. All of them can be needed at times. To have at least one each of all of the three areas of "People-orientation", "Action-orientation" and "Thought-orientation" though would cover many needed competencies of a typical working team task.
In most cases, organisations describe certain functional roles to their staff. Each of these functional roles also come with certain requisite competencies. A general manager might need different competencies than a finance officer or a Human Resource specialist. As you have probably already noticed, the team roles we discussed are mostly defined by the competencies they inherently bring to the team. It would therefore make sense to consider which of the team role competencies would fit the expectations we have for certain functional roles. The next task will shed some light on this and provide some examples.
Task: Case "Two job advertisements"
A large global company opens a new factory in Vietnam in order to produce screws that are needed by their customers in Asia. The headquarters in Japan puts together a new team for this factory. Two of the functions are still missing. Please read the job advertisement – we have reduced it to the job description as well as the required competencies for each position. When you look at the team roles table again, which competencies described there would correspond with the ones that are required for the two open positions? Could one Belbin team role cover all of the expectations, or is the company looking for someone who has their strengths spread over several team roles? Please write your solutions in the learning journal and elaborate on your suggestion.
1. Job description General Manager
- Communicate between the headquarters in Japan and the local staff in Vietnam
- Efficiently allocate and motivate the workforce in the factory
- Formulate milestones for factory development together with the management team and ensure that these plans are implemented
Required competencies:
- Good communication skills
- Ability to remain calm under pressure
- Strong interpersonal skills
2. Job Description Sales Manager
- Network with our existing and potential customers in the Asian region, and to explore new sales regions for our products
- Create job descriptions for the new sales team, and allocate them for the most effective sales process. Motivate this team to reach the agreed sales targets
- Present and communicate the benefits of our premium product to potential customers
Required competencies:
- Analytical skills
- Strong networking and communication skills
- Strong internal drive
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Again, several solutions are possible. One possibility for the general manager could be someone with the team role as a "Co-ordinator", who should bring the competencies of allocating the workforce and planning the milestones with the team and should keep the big picture, even under pressure. It should be ensured that this management team would also have someone with a strong implementation drive, like a "Shaper" or "Implementer".
As to the sales manager, this job description could call out for an "Resource Investigator", who would be good in connecting with people outside the organization. As this person could lose his/her drive quickly once the first excitement of opening a new factory has passed, someone with the role of the "Shaper" could also be useful here, in the long run, to keep the motivation going.
Zuletzt geändert: Sonntag, 22. Juni 2025, 23:52