R. M. Belbin

Belbin's "Team roles" model may be a good management tool, but this book does nothing to encourage its usage. This is the third edition of the first book Belbin apparently wrote on the subject, therefore it focuses more on his research process than on the actual results. Unfortunately, it is neither informative nor entertaining: experiments follow each other in what seems like a hastened a posteriori justification, the case studies are colourless and the "indubitable proofs" Belbin offers to his theory turn out to be nothing but half-baked empirical descriptions. The only objective evidence would have been the actual numbered results of his experiments, but these are carefully hidden in two undocumented, barely readable figures (the only two figures in the whole book)! Readers with a rational mind will have trouble believing anything Belbin is arguing. I was not impressed. Reading this book is a waste of time.… (mere)

I still have to finish the last chapter and re-read the first but wanted to write while my opinions are still fresh. My impression is that Belbin's roles of teams replacing hierarchies is a bit rosy. However, of all the dozen or so articles I have read on working with and managing teams, this books is the most useful because it discusses personality types as they apply in the workplace. Whereas MBTI discusses personality types, temperament and character, and DISC focuses on communication style, Belbin focuses on roles at work. Therefore, I find his theory more useful in understanding how invididuals can work together on teams. He believes that a person is not limited by his or her team role but by how well her or she develops and plays the role. He also advises that people develop more than one team role to adapt to various situations, although they should reject team roles to which they are not suited. There is also discussion of strengths, allowable weaknesses and unallowable weakes for each type and how these various roles interact with each other. At this point, I would like to know more about how this theory works for mananaging teams.… (mere)