Belbin Team Role

"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."

Belbin Team Roles

This is developed by Meredith Belbin in 1981(Belbin,2012). Belbin identified nine team roles and he categorized those roles into three groups: Action Oriented, People Oriented, and Thought Oriented. Each team role is associated with typical behavioral and interpersonal strengths.Belbin also defined characteristic weaknesses that tend to accompany each team role. 

Csrdigest (2009)

Action Oriented Roles:

Shaper (SH)

Shapers are people who challenge the team to improve. They are dynamic and usually extroverted people who enjoy stimulating others for solving problems. The Shaper is the one who shakes things up to make sure that all possibilities are considered. 

• Weaknesses may be that they're argumentative, and that they may offend people's feelings.

Implementer (IMP)

Implementers are the people who get things done. They turn the team's ideas and concepts into practical actions and plans. They are typically conservative, disciplined people who work systematically and efficiently and are very well organized. 

• Well-organized and predictable. Takes basic ideas and makes them work in practice. Can be slow.

Completer-Finisher (CF)

Completer-Finishers are the people who see that projects are completed thoroughly. They ensure there have been no errors and pay attention. They are very concerned with deadlines. 

• Reliably sees things through to the end, ironing out the wrinkles and ensuring everything works well. Can worry too much and not trust others.

People Oriented Roles:

Coordinator (CO)

Coordinators are the ones who take on the traditional team-leader role and have been referred to as the chairman. They guide the team to what they perceive are the objectives. They are often excellent listeners and they are naturally able to recognize the value that each team members brings to the table. They are calm and good-natured and delegate tasks very effectively.

• Weaknesses are that they may delegate away too much personal responsibility, and may tend to be manipulative.

Team Worker (TW)

Team Workers are the people who provide support and make sure that people within the team are working together effectively. They are flexible, diplomatic, and perceptive. 

• Their weaknesses may be a tendency to be indecisive, and to maintain uncommitted positions during discussions and decision-making.

Resource Investigator (RI)

Resource Investigators are innovative and curious. They explore available options, develop contacts, and negotiate for resources on behalf of the team. They are enthusiastic team members, who identify and work with external stakeholders to help the team accomplish its objective. 

• They may lose enthusiasm quickly, and are often overly optimistic.

Farm4.staticflickr (2012)

Thought Oriented Roles:

Plant (PL)

The Plant is the creative innovator who comes up with new ideas and approaches. They prefer to work apart from the team. Because their ideas are so novel, they can be impractical at times. 

Monitor-Evaluator (ME)

Monitor-Evaluators are best at analyzing and evaluating ideas that other people come up with. These people are shrewd and objective and they carefully weigh the pros and cons of all the options before coming to a decision. Monitor-Evaluators are critical thinkers and very strategic in their approach. 

Specialist (SP)

Specialists are people who have specialized knowledge that is needed to get the job done. They pride themselves on their skills and abilities, and they work to maintain their professional status. This may limit their contribution.

Team roles test of Belbin

According to 123test(2012), team roles theory has are specific different team roles. These roles can be functional, organizational, personal or even skillful. Each team should consist of different team roles, depending on the specific goals the team wants to achieve. This test determines which team roles best suit to author. 

123test (2012)

Answers have been used to identify which team role suits you best. This suitability is expressed as a percentage.  The nine team roles are the Executive, Explorer, Innovator, Analyst, Driver, Chairman, Completer, Team player and Expert.  The below details shows how each team role fits to author.

Author Yuganthi got the most of the percentage point  (17%) were for Executive (organizer) and Innovator equally.

123test (2012)

Executive

The executive is sometimes also referred to as the organizer. The executive is generally disciplined and eager to get the job done. He or she is efficient, practical, and systematic. Executives are well organized and diligent, and quickly turn the ideas of a team into concrete actions and practical plans.

Innovator

The innovator is often the creative generator of a team. He or she has a strong imagination and a desire to be original. The innovator prefers to be independent and tends to approach tasks in a scientific way. As an creative individual the innovator may play a crucial role in the way a team approaches tasks and solves problems.

Chairman

The chairman has a strong coordinating role. With an emphasis on procedures, the chairman will try to bring and keep the team together. He or she is communicative and deals with the members of the team in a respectful and open-minded way.

Expert

The expert has the skills and expertise required for the specific task at hand. He or she has a strong focus on the task and may get defensive when others interfere with his or her work. The expert prefers to work alone and team members often have a great deal of trust and confidence in him or her.

Analyst

The analyst has a tendency to be reserved and critical. The analyst will also react to plans and ideas in a rational and sensible way. He or she will favor a prudent approach to matters and will evaluate them according to their accuracy before acting.

Team player

The team player is caring, avoids conflicts, and fosters harmony. Being someone who likes to help other people, the team player is generally considered agreeable and friendly. He or she is diplomatic and emphasizes solidarity and team cohesion.

Driver

The driver is generally very ambitious and energetic. He or she may appear as impatient and impulsive. The driver is a strong motivator and will challenge others at crucial times. Although the actions of the driver may sometimes seem somewhat emotional, they do play a crucial role in pushing the team forward to succeed.

Explorer

The explorer is generally an extrovert by nature. He or she is cheerful, gregarious. The explorer is also investigative, interested and curious about things. Because explorers like to improvise and communicate with others, they will have little problem presenting ideas to the team and developing new contacts.

Completer

The completer is very conscientious and feels responsible for the team's achievements. Completers are concerned when errors are made and they tend to worry because of their controlling nature. The completer is also known as the finisher because they are most effectively used at the end of a task, to polish and scrutinize the work for errors, subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.

According to author Yuganthi's belbin test the role is a good  Executive (organizer) who has a  well disciplined and eager to get the job done role. And the qualities like   efficient, systematic, well organized and diligent and quickly turn the ideas of a team into concrete actions are very important and while working with others, these qualities can see in authors character clearly.

werkenmetteamrollen  (2012)

Use talents to improving team performance

The Belbin team role model is designed to use the talents and personalities of team members. If you want the team to improve its performance by working together more effective, it is important that you learn to use the psychological diversity in your team to its fullest potential.

By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the role and author is planning to over come issues which would be sufficient to play in the life. :)


According to the test author is an Implementer within the team. Disciplined, orderly and task-oriented and also puts plans and ideas into easily executable tasks. Also little practical and conservative when the usefulness of new ideas is not immediately clear.
Character is structured approach, hardworking, realistic professional and sees what is working and not working.
Likes are unambitious agreement, clear instructions, regularity.
Contributions to the team are practical organizer in the team, put ideas into plans, excellent executor of plans, systematic worker. 
Pitfalls are acts before thinking  things through, being inflexible, dismissing innovation too quickly. 


Strengths  of the role

1. Disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient. 
2. Turns ideas into practical actions (Takes the colleagues' suggestions and ideas and turns them into positive action. )
3. Motivated by own loyalty to the team or company (Often take on jobs everyone else avoids or dislikes.)

Weaknesses of the role

1. Somewhat inflexible. (Closed-minded and inflexible since they will often have difficulty from own well-thought-out plans)
2. Slow to respond to new possibilities

Recognize authors type by what author say; Sound like by the author:

• If it can be done, we will do it. 
• Hard work never killed anybody. 
• The company has my full support.
• Let’s get down to the task in hand. 
• The difficult we do it immediately. The impossible takes a little longer. 
• To err is human, to forgive is not company policy. 
• An ounce of action is worth a pound of theory. 

I 100% agree with this team role test which i had been faced in last few days ago. Actually i think that is because of my strengths which i have being mentioned few lines before. If someone of team is saying something about the group work i have the ability to turn the ideas into concrete actions and provide explanations too. By looking at these efficient, systematic, well organized and diligent qualities i think i am full of these and i can be improve open-minded and be flexible. This author can maintain step by step to success in the future. But  i have other skills where i need to have for the other team role in the belbin test.

So we all have the skills where we can share the skills with each other and can build the team spirit too. And I love to formulate the own piece of work where there is creative and unique from others. One of the activities, I can take part is when I did my creative piece of writing for the HNB English Medium creative writing competition. And also in LFS author did some creative innovations and bought them as the lecturer instructed us and presented to class. The first thing that comes to the mind is the most excellent than the second. 

 http://www.123test.com/team-roles-test/index.php

Authors friend Dinithi  wijetunge got the most of the percentage point  (17%) were for   Chairman and Explorer equally.

Chairman

The chairman has a strong coordinating role. With an emphasis on procedures, the chairman will try to bring and keep the team together. He or she is communicative and deals with the members of the team in a respectful and open-minded way.

Explorer

The explorer is generally an extrovert by nature. He or she is cheerful, gregarious. The explorer is also investigative, interested and curious about things. Because explorers like to improvise and communicate with others, they will have little problem presenting ideas to the team and developing new contacts.

Innovator

The innovator is often the creative generator of a team. He or she has a strong imagination and a desire to be original. The innovator prefers to be independent and tends to approach tasks in a scientific way. As an creative individual the innovator may play a crucial role in the way a team approaches tasks and solves problems.

Team player

The team player is caring, avoids conflicts, and fosters harmony. Being someone who likes to help other people, the team player is generally considered agreeable and friendly. He or she is diplomatic and emphasizes solidarity and team cohesion.

Driver

The driver is generally very ambitious and energetic. He or she may appear as impatient and impulsive. The driver is a strong motivator and will challenge others at crucial times. Although the actions of the driver may sometimes seem somewhat emotional, they do play a crucial role in pushing the team forward to succeed.

Executive

The executive is sometimes also referred to as the organizer. The executive is generally disciplined and eager to get the job done. He or she is efficient, practical, and systematic. Executives are well organized and diligent, and quickly turn the ideas of a team into concrete actions and practical plans.

Analyst

The analyst has a tendency to be reserved and critical. The analyst will also react to plans and ideas in a rational and sensible way. He or she will favor a prudent approach to matters and will evaluate them according to their accuracy before acting.

Expert

The expert has the skills and expertise required for the specific task at hand. He or she has a strong focus on the task and may get defensive when others interfere with his or her work. The expert prefers to work alone and team members often have a great deal of trust and confidence in him or her.

Completer

The completer is very conscientious and feels responsible for the team's achievements. Completers are concerned when errors are made and they tend to worry because of their controlling nature. The completer is also known as the finisher because they are most effectively used at the end of a task, to polish and scrutinize the work for errors, subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.

According to Dinithi 's belbin test she is a good chairman who has a strong coordinating role. And the qualities like  communicative and deals with the members of the team in a respectful and open-minded way are very important and while working with her these qualities we can see in the character clearly.

werkenmetteamrollen  (2012)

Coordinator is a natural coordinator of the team. Looks after procedures, helps team members clarify intentions and summarizes what everyone wants. Trusts others and delegates easily but sometimes has a tendency to leave too much work to others.
Character is natural coordinator, calm, tolerant, positive, open minded.
Likes are procedures, progress and decision, combined efforts, setting goals.
Contributions to the team are clarifies goals, creates unity, takes decision. 
Pitfalls are deli great work too easy.

Strengths  of the role

1. Mature, confident ( Recognize abilities in others )
2. Clarifies goals, promotes decision-making, delegates well. 

Weaknesses of the role

1. Can often be seen as manipulative. 
2. Off loads personal work.

Recognize Dinithi's role type by the following;

• Let’s keep the main objective in sight.
• Never assume that silence means approval.
• I think that we should give someone else a chance.
• Good delegation is an art.
• Management is the art of getting other people to do all the work

http://www.123test.com/team-roles-test/id=0c87ead3a39601c4c

Authors friend Ahmadh Azar got the most of the percentage point  (17%) were for  Explorer and chairman.

Explorer

The explorer is generally an extrovert by nature. He or she is cheerful, gregarious. The explorer is also investigative, interested and curious about things. Because explorers like to improvise and communicate with others, they will have little problem presenting ideas to the team and developing new contacts.

Chairman

The chairman has a strong coordinating role. With an emphasis on procedures, the chairman will try to bring and keep the team together. He or she is communicative and deals with the members of the team in a respectful and open-minded way.

Innovator

The innovator is often the creative generator of a team. He or she has a strong imagination and a desire to be original. The innovator prefers to be independent and tends to approach tasks in a scientific way. As an creative individual the innovator may play a crucial role in the way a team approaches tasks and solves problems.

Completer

The completer is very conscientious and feels responsible for the team's achievements. Completers are concerned when errors are made and they tend to worry because of their controlling nature. The completer is also known as the finisher because they are most effectively used at the end of a task, to polish and scrutinize the work for errors, subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.

Team player

The team player is caring, avoids conflicts, and fosters harmony. Being someone who likes to help other people, the team player is generally considered agreeable and friendly. He or she is diplomatic and emphasizes solidarity and team cohesion.

Driver

The driver is generally very ambitious and energetic. He or she may appear as impatient and impulsive. The driver is a strong motivator and will challenge others at crucial times. Although the actions of the driver may sometimes seem somewhat emotional, they do play a crucial role in pushing the team forward to succeed.

Analyst

The analyst has a tendency to be reserved and critical. The analyst will also react to plans and ideas in a rational and sensible way. He or she will favor a prudent approach to matters and will evaluate them according to their accuracy before acting.

Executive

The executive is sometimes also referred to as the organizer. The executive is generally disciplined and eager to get the job done. He or she is efficient, practical, and systematic. Executives are well organized and diligent, and quickly turn the ideas of a team into concrete actions and practical plans.

Expert

The expert has the skills and expertise required for the specific task at hand. He or she has a strong focus on the task and may get defensive when others interfere with his or her work. The expert prefers to work alone and team members often have a great deal of trust and confidence in him or her.

According to Ahmadh 's belbin test he is a good explorer who has a resource investigator  role. And the qualities like  cheerful, communicate with others by sharing ideas and interested with the things are very important and while working with him these qualities we can see in the character clearly.

werkenmetteamrollen  (2012)

Resource Investigator is cheerful, extroverted person with lots of contacts within and outside the team. He is enthusiastic, adventurous and open-minded and always looking for new ideas. Naturally good at developing and maintaining contacts, but may become careless when the novelty wears off.

Character is extrovert, communicative,playful,enthusiastic and curious.
Likes are innovation,people and contacts, adventure.
Contributions to the team are many external contacts, bring new ideas, improviser. 
Pitfalls are being too easily distracted, starting things without finishing them, over enthusiastic.

Strengths  of the role

1. Extrovert
2. Enthusiastic and communicative
3. Explores opportunities
4. Develops contacts. 

Weaknesses of the role

1. Over - optimistic
2. Loses interest when original enthusiasm has passed

Recognize Ahmadh's role type by the following;

• Make fortune out of something.
• Ideas should be stolen with pride.
• Opportunities arise from other people’s mistakes.
• You can always telephone to find out.
• Time spent in prospect is rarely wasted

http://www.123test.com/team-roles-test/index.php 

Authors friend Madara Hemachandra got the most of the percentage point  for  Innovator.

Innovator

The innovator is often the creative generator of a team. He or she has a strong imagination and a desire to be original. The innovator prefers to be independent and tends to approach tasks in a scientific way. As an creative individual the innovator may play a crucial role in the way a team approaches tasks and solves problems.

According to Madara 's belbin test she is a plant who has creative ideas. And the qualities like strong imagination, independent and while working with her these qualities we can see in the character clearly.

werkenmetteamrollen  (2012)

Innovator is thinking creatively before starting to do a task.Needs space to fantasize about new and surprising solutions to complex problems. Not practical in all the time.
Character is introvert, thinker, daydreamer.
Likes are intellectual challenges, creativity.
Contributions to the team are innovative ideas. 
Pitfalls are too.

Strengths  of the role

1. Creative, imaginative.
2. Solves difficult problems.

Weaknesses of the role

1. Pre-occupied to communicate effectively

Recognize Madara's role type by the following;

• When a problem is baffling, think laterally.
• Do not disturb, genius at work.
• Good ideas always seem strange at first.
• Ideas start with dreaming.

Image.shutterstock (2012)

With the all four members role finally the author can come to a conclusion where the authour can be satissfy in working with this team with Yuganthi, Dinithi, Madara,Ahmadh. If all of us perform a team its  better to achieve success though the team with peace, harmony as well as happy, motivation and self disciplined. I agree on the friends team role test as their role is clearly displaying when we are working together in a particular task. As the Image.shutterstock (2012), the author also like to build team spirit with all of these specially as we know each to other now. :D

If these are in the authors team there is no 1 in the team as the below image. So author is dreaming or hoping to have a team with the above  members....... :D :)

1.bp(2010)

Benefits of applying secret to team success within organization..

• Brings a proven technology to creating an effective working team
• Defines roles and responsibilities of team members
• Ensures people fulfill the roles that are preferred or strongest role
• Removes obstacles that prevents a team from succeeding
• Decreases conflict and builds harmony as there is a balance in team roles
• Improves communication
• Identifies a teams strengths and weaknesses
• Helps with the recruiting process of filling the gaps in your team
• Ensure members understand the unique contribution (role) of each team member
• Helps improve customer satisfaction as happy teams create extraordinary customer service
• Improves morale, productivity, and profit