Menu
member login contact link

When it comes to innovation, companies face a new kind of competition.

Rather than just competing with other companies, organizations now have to contend with changes in the market too, driven by advances in technology.

This kind of swift innovation requires effective collaboration. “The ‘millennials’ who will soon make up half the workforce in rich countries”, says The Economist, “were reared from nursery school onwards to work in groups”.

This is where Belbin comes in.

A paper written by Belbin Accredited Nel Mostert, and published in the Journal of Creativity and Business Innovation in 2015, is an excellent resource for understanding how Belbin Team Roles can help to further creativity and innovation in an organization, including how to maximise Team Role contributions and ensure that certain behavioural cultures don’t threaten the success of a particular endeavour.

The paper includes a number of case studies. In one case of ‘project divorce’, two driven, high-energy project leaders (‘Shapers’, in Belbin terminology) split a project in half in order to share responsibility without clashing over their contribution. In another case, a place is carved out for a creative, original individual (a ‘Plant’, in Belbin terms) within a well-established – and change-resistant – team.

Another study describes the exclusion of an enthusiastic and innovative ‘Resource Investigator’ – criticised for being absent from the office whilst finding new leads and information – from a more inward-looking team, who comes to discover his value once he has left.

The paper explores various applications of Belbin Team Roles, giving ‘insights into the power of the Belbin tool’.

You can download the paper here.

Next Steps

To find out how the language of Belbin Team Roles can help your teams reach their innovative potential, get in touch! Email [email protected] or call us on 01223 264975. 

Discover individual and team strengths using Belbin Team Role reports

Belbin Individual Reports

Before you can analyse your teams, you need to look at each individual's contribution. So, the first thing you will need to do is to generate a Belbin Individual report for each member of the team.

Find out more

Belbin Team Reports

Whether you're forming a new team, introducing new people to an existing team, or trying to resolve issues within a team, a Belbin Team report can help you to manage it.

Discover more

Why Use Belbin?

Belbin Team Roles are used to identify behavioural strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. Whether developing people, resolving conflict or fine-tuning high performance...

Read more

Belbin Training and Workshops

Practical Belbin Workshop

A 'train the trainer' hands-on workshop to help you understand how to use Belbin Team Roles - to help you, your managers, teams and organisation!

Find out more

Team Workshops

If you are experiencing problems with particular people or teams, then a Belbin workshop could be the answer.

Discover more

Belbin Accreditation

Belbin Team Role Accreditation is recommended for anyone who wants to use Belbin Team Roles to improve the performance of teams, and maximise working relationships.

Accreditation