Customer Reviews

Fatigue and Tribological Properties of Plastics and Elastomers (Plastics Design Library)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the authorative update on the English team guru's work on high performing teams. Less academic than his earlier seminal work, really focussed on the team at work. There's plenty of new stuff as well: Belbin's thoughts on the evolution of HR strategies, team leaders and the eligibilty versus suitabilty issue are all well explored.

Managers needs this to learn how their teams tick. Trainers need it to facilitate learning. Individuals need it to understand their own roles and to be comfortable with them.

Belbin has become one of the world experts on teams, and written a number of books on team work, and has a web site devoted to his consulting business on teams. You can get profiles done on line etc. Whilst I don't think his work is leading edge on group dynamics and the complexity of human teams, he offers a great practical methodology for working with people on teams. I have used this material with real success with real managers and real people in the work place, and it has been a useful catalyst for improving peoples understanding of different styles and roles, and how to work to peoples natural strengths.

The Belbin model works well for characterizing individual styles and diagnosing team strengths and weaknesses:
- It is team focused. It focuses people outward on how they work with other people and how they are perceived, not inward on their own personality traits
- It is results-focused. Rather than starting with personality traits and extrapolating how those might interact on a team, it starts with the behaviors that a successful team needs and asks people how their team can fill those roles
- The underlying research is based on empirical observation and the results hold up well.
- The model is intuitive and makes sense without significant background study
- The observer data gives the results credibility and highlights incongruities between the role people perceive they are playing in a team and the role others see them performing.
- The inventory is quick and doesn't force choices where none of the options apply
I frequently use it with short-duration teams of high-potentials focused on innovation and the team roles easily map onto the innovation behaviors the teams need to practice.

This book provides the foundation necessary for applying the Belbin Team Role theory. In particular, the chapters on the team role language, eligibility versus suitability, coherence and self-management will serve as a solid grounding.

The new edition largely just fine tunes the presentation, with summary points at end of each chapter. There has been some updating, for example an added brief analysis of the distinction between the leadership styles of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (to update the Reagan-Thatcher comparison) . I would like to see some updating of Belbin's predictions - for example in the 1993 edition Belbin wrote "I believe the future looks brighter for team leaders than for solo leaders." Nothing has been added to the 2010 version to confirm or refute that.

The MECE of the eight roles are doubtful, making the analysis on team strengths difficult to be brought into practice.

It is a nice try to do a MECE classification on team roles, but there are still room for improvements in this book.