6 Summary

Playing roles is a fact of life and you will likely have quite a collection of roles going on at any given time. Successful team-working is heavily dependent on the willingness of team members to take on different roles and fill them effectively. Some roles are technical, in that they require specialist knowledge. Other roles are functional, in that they enable the team to function as a team and not merely as a disparate group.

There are also behavioural or team roles, which describe how people actually behave once a team is formed. With behavioural roles, it is the personality of the individual that is the most reliable indicator of suitability for the role. Belbin has identified nine recurring team roles or ‘types’, with each type having both positive and negative traits and with each having the potential to contribute to team-working in different situations.

You should now be able to:

• identify some of the different roles you play in your life
• understand the differences between the 9 roles described by Belbin
• identify the different roles in some of the teams you have been a part of
• recognise those roles that you prefer to play in a team.

In Week 3, you will consider how a newly-assembled group begins to develop into a team, or in some cases, fails to do so.

You can now go to Week 3 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .