Designing a team - part 1

Designing a Team

Teams - management teams, senior leadership teams or any other team - are commonly made up of members holding particular appointments. They are there by virtue of the offices or responsibilities they represent.

No overall sense of design governs the composition of the group which, in human terms, is little more than a random collection of professionals with as wide a spread of human foibles and personality characteristics as one might expect to find in the population at large.

However, we know that the compatibility of members of the team is crucial to its effectiveness. It is a subject of no less importance than whether members of a team are talented as accountants, production engineers, or salespeople.

The problem is that human compatibility is more difficult to assess than technical competence.

Our research has given leads on how the subject of compatibility within the team might be approached.

To guide us in our work of team design, four interlocking principles can be set out:

1. Functional and Team Role

Members of a team, can contribute in two ways to the achievement of team objectives.

They can perform well in a functional role in drawing on their professional and technical knowledge as the situation demands.

They also have a potentially valuable Team Role to perform. A Team Role describes a pattern of behaviour characteristic of the way in which one team member interacts with others in facilitating the progress of the team.

2. Team balance

Each team needs an optimum balance in both functional roles and Team Roles.

The ideal blend will depend on the goals and tasks the team faces.

3. Self-awareness and flexibility

The effectiveness of a team will be promoted by the extent to which members correctly recognize and adjust themselves to the relative strengths within the team both in expertise and ability to engage in specific Team Roles.

Personal qualities fit members for some Team Roles while limiting the likelihood that they will succeed in others

4. Team Roles are key

A team can deploy its technical resources to best advantage only when it has the requisite range of Team Roles to ensure efficient teamwork.

Next steps

How do we make better use of the Team Role data we have?

The first benefit is recruitment. When a new manager or team member is being sought, what sort of person should you look for?

We will be looking at this in our next article under the series: Designing a team.

(This article is adapted from Management Teams, Why they Succeed or fail, by R.Meredith Belbin. The 3rd edition was published by Routledge, 2013. The copyright remains with Belbin Ltd.)