Leadership Development Experts, Part II
Dr Meredith Belbin
As many of you may know we are fans of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and it is one of the most widely used instruments internationally (within non-psychiatric populations). We’ve used it in Canada, Egypt, Japan, Mexico and the United States. When we travel over the pond though, our clients usually prefer we use the Belbin Team Roles as the instrument of choice for personality assessment.
In my previous position, over fifteen years ago, I was first introduced to the work of Dr. Meredith Belbin by some colleagues from England. Since then TeamBuilders WorldWide has used the Belbin Team Roles in England, France and the United States. What I like most about Dr. Belbin’s approach is that he doesn’t subscribe to the generic use of the word team to describe work groups. He also doesn’t believe that scavenger hunts, boat building and culinary types of events are great for the social aspect of group development, and should not be considered “team building.”
Dr Meredith Belbin, UK academic and consultant, developed the Belbin team roles model in the late 1970s. Belbin’s work at Henley Management College demonstrated that balanced teams comprised of people with different capabilities performed better than teams that are less well balanced. Belbin’s key book ‘Management Teams - Why They Succeed or Fail’, was first published in 1981. According to Belbin publicity, the Belbin Team Roles model is used by over 40% of the UK’s top 100 companies, and thousands more internationally. (Belbin founded Belbin Associates, who produce and provide psychometrics - personality and behavioral testing instruments and other related services based on Belbin’s theories)
Please check out more about his work here.