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Netcheck

By Garry Platt (July 2005 Issue)
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I was once accused of being a Plant! Not in the vegetable sense of the word you understand, but in the Belbin Team Type sort of way. It was a definition that when I came to understand it I accepted as probably true.

This month I shall be mostly writing about teams. The concept of team working has been explored, developed, defined, abused, sold, dismissed and generally messed around for years. One or two concepts appear to have withstood the test of time and others are just developing. Given that teams have existed ever since there was more than one person on the planet, so we should be pretty good at it by now, but we aren't.

It would probably be a good idea to start by clarifying the difference between a group of people and a team, the following website, www.breakawaynow.com/group.html provides a stab at this and captures much of what I would hold to be true and necessary when creating or developing a team.

Belbin
With the clients with whom I work there is little doubt that Belbin is the most commonly used or referenced team type model and as such it would be remiss of me not to explore and visit again the key concepts encompassed by this model. For those who are new to this role type model, there are three main orientations in team players and three team types under each of these headings, making for nine different team roles, named here they are.
*Action-Oriented Roles – Completer Finisher, Implementer and Shaper.
* People-Oriented Roles – Coordinator, Resource Investigator and Team worker.
* Cerebral Roles – Plant, Monitor Evaluator and Specialist.

Dr Meredith Belbin, the creator and developer of this concept has his own website at http://www.belbin.com which is worth visiting. It contains a brief resume of his model but is more of a commercial site for promoting and selling the questionnaires and related materials. The site I would like to focus on is www.srds.co.uk/cedtraining/bast/bast09.htm which takes a much more rounded overview of how teams operate and than the singular Belbin model, while still incorporating the Belbin approach. This website, which is comprised of a series series of handouts that are used on a programme by the Community Economic Development (CED) Team centred in Banffshire, Scotland, creates a more holistic view of how teams can be defined and analysed

The CED website looks at the Task and Maintenance functions that take places in teams. Task roles are those that appear to deliver against the organisation’s bottom line and Maintenance activity is the work that contributes towards smooth running and overall performance. The idea of Thinkers, Doers and Carers is then introduced - three simple definitions of typical behaviour and simple roles within a group setting. Now Belbin makes his appearance and is explained in some depth, complementing the work presented previously. As an explanation and introduction of this concept it is good material, clearly laid and simply illustrated.

Ratings
www.srds.co.uk/cedtraining/bast/bast09.htm
Content  ****
Originality  ***
Navigability *****
Presentation & Graphics ****
Downloads & Freebies ****
Links *

While reviewing websites for this Belbin section I came across a lesson plan and activity that looks like a simple but effective method to introduce and begin exploring this model. Visit www.few.eur.nl/few/people/berden/files/belbin2.doc to download their approach.

Tuckman
The second area of team working I would like to look at surrounds Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 model of how teams develop; the stages through which they pass from first coming together to the point at which they are a high achieving unit. For an introduction to this concept one of the best sources I could locate was at http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm

For those readers who may not be wholly familiar with the concept it looks like this.

Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing

Ratings
www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm
Content  ****
Originality  **
Navigability ****
Presentation & Graphics *****
Downloads & Freebies ****
Links ***

An extremely useful tool that can be run in conjunction with Tuckman’s model is available at www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/teamsuv.html . This is a questionnaire given to members of a team; the resulting analysis is intended to indicate the stage they are at in the Tuckman process.

While researching Tuckman’s model I came across an observation which rang true for me. This is located at www.infed.org.uk/thinkers/tuckman.htm Tuckman proposed that team development was linear, at this website it suggests that it is probably cyclical and illustrates this process of team development. This ‘feels’ right to me as few (if any) teams remain at the optimum performing level without hiccups and problems disturbing the status quo.


Our thanks for this month’s ‘Netcheck’ go to Garry Platt, a senior consultant at the Woodland Grange Management Centre in Leamington Spa where he plays a key role in the centre’s provision of ongoing management training and development across both public and private sectors. If you think this edition of ‘Netcheck’ is good, bad, ugly or simply an affront to 10,000 years of human progress, do let Garry know at garry.platt@wgrange.com
Clare Forrest returns in the August issue to share her recent Internet finds.

 

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