Six Secrets of Powerful Teams: A Practical Guide to the Magic of Motivating and Influencing Teams (5 page)

The Belbin Team Roles Model can be used in several ways - it is especially useful in situations where a team must be created that can undertake an assignment requiring a certain set of skills and combination of roles, or to optimize cooperation in existing teams.

The assessment itself is extremely beneficial as it encourages individuals to take a closer look at their own strength and weaknesses and those of the other team members and how they cooperate together. These can then be exploited or corrected as necessary, resulting ultimately in a flexible, complementary, and stronger team.

Note
Important
:

1. During the Storming stage, it is normal to see conflict in the context of which team member fills which role! The progression to the Norming stage is achieved when the struggle for the roles has finished and the team members ACCEPT the roles that they will be filling in the team. In this respect those teams who remain in the Storming stage or teams where conflict is ever present, are teams in which the roles definition has not been accepted;
   
2. It is also clear now why when team members leave or join the team there is a recurrence of the Forming and Storming stages, since the team roles have been shuffled and require a reorder.
   

The illustration below is a genuine Belbin team analysis of a real team (this analysis is based on the eight role - previous Belbin model- however most of the roles and all the concepts remain unchanged).

The pink shaded areas (dark grey) mark the team member’s leading role preference. The yellow shaded areas (light grey) indicate secondary role preferences. In this team one can observe mature individuals who are able to carry out most of the spectrum of roles.

Having said that, within this team of consultants one can also observe a tendency towards ‘Shaping’ which is a powerful action based role - four of the team members have powerful primary preference for this role, and the other four team members have a secondary preference for this role. The shaper role is dynamic and thrives on pressure. He has a drive to overcome obstacles.

The shaper might annoy people in his zealous effort to get things going. Shapers however are Prone to provocation and short-lived bursts of temper. The abundant number of shapers within this team can prove to be disastrous. The team leader who by the way is also a shaper, must, by mean of discussion with the team, analyze how to move team members to their secondary roles and design guidelines and “ground rules” for the team to operate successfully and cohesively together. This team, on the other hand, has too little of the ME (Monitor-Evaluator) role. This role is vital in evaluating actions and keeping track of progress. He can keep the team sober and raise concerns especially when there are so many shapers within this team.

The above scenario is quite common in many work environments. A group of people who perform the same function have a limited role variance, leading to possible friction in interactions. For example, within a research department, the team roles of Specialist and Plant may be filled by several people, missing other required roles. Another example may be a team of business consultants who tend to fill the Team Workers and Shapers roles. Such teams are unbalanced, as they are missing key attitudes and points of view.

If the team is unbalanced, first identify any team weakness that is not naturally covered by the team members. Then identify potential areas of conflict. For example, as seen above, too many Shapers can weaken a team if each Shaper wants to pull the team in a different direction.

Being cognizant of the Belbin Team Roles model brings harmony to your team. Team members appreciate that there are various roles that are equally important in diverse environments and that no single role supersedes the others.

Reflection
! When carrying out this exercise it is always interesting to see how people will recognize themselves and the team dynamics within the framework of the model. As mentioned before it provides the useful context in which to analyze team needs and behaviors.

Evidently the team in this case study is in the storming stage:

The team which Ashley leads is ad hoc. They have been working together for only one month.  There is lot of friction concerning responsibilities. There are many action items too and the workload is staggering.

What can Ashley do to help the team move through this stage properly?

The conflict is about responsibilities and assignment of tasks, it seems that team roles have not been clearly defined. Belbin analysis might reveal an asymmetrical distribution of the roles in the team. During the storming stage team members will be competing for their preferred roles and only reluctantly will they move to fill a secondary role.

This competition is in the background, people do not explicitly say, and probably are not cognizant of, their preferred role. What one sees in the foreground is typical manifestations of conflict.

Understanding that the team is in the storming stage, as well as, understanding that roles have not been properly identified will help Ashley lead the team towards ‘norming’. Ashley can also provide individual support to team members during one-on-one meetings with team members.

Ashley might also be comforted to know, that the storming stage is an important stage which teams go through. Novice project managers are anxious and stressed when they witness the level of conflict that occurs within the team.
For these project managers the best recommendation is to accept the fact that conflict and storming is part of a normal team evolution
. The project manager needs to provide guidance to the entire team and individual support to team members, off-line.

The second case study exhibits a team which is somewhere between ‘norming’ and performing. The conflict that we see within this team is more about role fulfillment.

Remember
: Ed sent an email to Beverly and she replied immediately.

It seems that both Ed and Beverly are thought oriented and might be specifically
Monitor- Evaluators
. If that is the case, then the email that Mark sent and the way he handled the conflict between Ed and Beverly, is incorrect.

Team leaders who are aware of the Belbin team roles and who conduct an assessment with the team, be it virtual or co-located, can choose
what role they will fill when conflict arises
. This is twice important in virtual teams where communication is often written and provided asynchronously. Mark would be well advised to step up and
take the role of the shaper
rather than his current role, based on his laconic reply.

As mentioned elsewhere, people from similar departments and backgrounds tend to share similar preference to team roles. Team leaders operating in such environments can mitigate the challenge
by purposely choosing a role that compliments the team needs
.

CHAPTER

THREE

Uncovering the Six Secrets

Belbin and Tuchman Jensen models provide a context to understand the dynamics on the team level. Tuchman Jensen is a process model, depicting the steps by which team mature and become productive. Belbin is a discrete element model, portraying the required components a team must have, in order to function well, regardless of the process and team life cycle.

However complete, these models ignore the vital elements of teams;
individual interactions between the members
. Teams are made of people, people interact in teams and it is these interactions and their results which impact the team’s results.

The six secrets described below inquire deeper into human interactions in teams.

The six secrets in a nutshell:

1. The power of self disclosure states that by sharing our thoughts and feelings
   we increase performance
   ;
   
2. The incredible impact of Me argues against
   common use of ‘We’ in teams which leads to blurred accountabilities
   and unclear communication;
   
3. The magic of simple Gestalt concepts explains how people interact in social and business environments and explains
   how to unmask intentions and desires of people
   when they communicate;
   
4. The focusing on the ‘Here’ process is quite advanced,
   it provides the team leader with a way to increase accountability and performance
   ;
   
5. The practicality of perception
   introduces a decision making tool to increase perceptive
   analysis.
   
6. Revealing ideas of NLP and the use of words presents
   5 words that are used too often in interactions, and have a detrimental impact on results
   .
   

Like me, I’m sure you’ve seen movies that showed psychologists treating patients. Do you remember how the treatment was portrayed? The therapist is mostly listening; the patient is either lying on a sofa or seated on a chair. The psychologist or therapist is writing down things that the patient is saying and sometimes mirroring things that have been said.

It is no wonder then that for most of us,
when leading a team or being member of a team we have this certain picture of how a leader should interact with the team
. The leader might listen, nod his head a few times, maybe take notes and then give his prescribed decision or facilitate the decision with the team.

Nowhere in the movies with the psychologist treating patients scene, is self-disclosure mentioned. As a side note, Freud did not believe in self-disclosure, and most psychologists to this day think negatively of it and view it as malpractice.

What is self-disclosure, what makes it so powerful and why are psychologists afraid of it
?

Self-disclosure is saying out loud something about oneself, one thoughts or feelings. It is extremely powerful for a leader or a team member to self disclose. It is inspiring and stimulating the team to a new frame of interactions.

You might be asking yourself why is it, that psychologist don’t use it, if it is so powerful? Since you’ve asked: imagine what would happen if psychology really worked and people would go to therapists for a short period of time? it would render the entire psychological practice obsolete in terms of return on investment…

I cannot emphasize enough how powerful self-disclosure is, in enabling teams to work through difficult situations.

Self-disclosure doesn’t have to be about something personal, rather it can be a personal statement of how one views, thinks or feels about the situation. Note though that self-disclosure is about
our wants and needs rather than our positions
.

For example in a conflict over resources where someone would use a statement such as: “I’ve been listening to you for quite some time, but still we need Jerry to work on this task”.

The self-disclosure statement might be something like: “I feel that my back is against the wall in terms of the time and budget given, and I feel that you are taking advantage of it”.

Notice how self-disclosure puts things on the table without going around and around.

Self-disclosure is actually
taking a risk
within the team. In other words it is
being vulnerable
within the team setting. Recently a lot has been said in favor of vulnerability. Showing vulnerability is one of the most effective methods in creating trust between people. Self-disclosure is a tool with which one can exhibit a certain weak spot – i.e. vulnerability – thus taking the
risk of exposing
to the team’s judgment.

The benefit for teams who use self-disclosure is the building of
trust
. Trust is one of the most important elements in powerful teams.

Trust is necessary as without trust between team members it is difficult to operate effectively in a collaborative manner
.

In the psychologist patient interaction, one can now imagine how self-disclosure, while extremely potent, is usually frowned upon by psychologists as it requires them to move away from their comfort zone, and take a risk to relate to the patient as an equal. This again is very true to team interactions, as it is much easier to stay within the comfort zone, and not take the risk and expose vulnerability.

As mentioned above, self-disclosure necessitates risk-taking. Who better to take that risk than the team leader? She is the most relevant person to be the first to exhibit vulnerability. However, even for the team leader this is not an easy task, as it requires her to feel supported by at least one person within the team. Otherwise she will not take this risk of saying something which she feels or thinks about a certain situation.

The funny thing is that once the leader takes this first step, moves away from her comfort zone, and uses the tool of self-disclosure, the other team members will follow the lead.

Let’s review the first case study and observe where self-disclosure might work. Do you remember what was going on between the team leader and one of the team members? Here is the scenario:

Ashley tries
to gain control back and asks Tina: “why do you think this is now relevant for our meeting?
Let’s try to get back
on our planned agenda!”  Tina answers: “we should focus on production levels as this is what is driving the transfer to production, trust me I’ve been here and have seen these projects many times”. Jennifer mentions cynically that it is true that Tina has been around for quite some time but going through the rolling plan has never actually helped in making a smooth transfer from development to operation

What’s happening? There is a struggle for power between Ashley and Tina, as this transpires the team members sit back and passively view the struggle.

How would a self-disclosure, risk taking reply, sound?

Ashley can thank Jennifer for her support and say something like: “Tina, I appreciate your knowledge and involvement. (I feel/think a bit threatened now – high risk), and I really want to lead this meeting the way I planned”.

For sure once the leader discloses his thoughts or feelings, the following interaction will be different.

Self-disclosure is extremely powerful, use it wisely. If you’re not convinced yet, take the risk, show vulnerability see what happens.

Remember: Self disclosure – Vulnerability – Risk – stepping outside the comfort zone – Building Trust.