A great experience with a style survey

In an earlier post today I was rather scathing about an attempt to do an instyatnt personality analysis with a simplistic tool. This doesn't mean that I discount the value of legitimate instruments.

I am working as part of a team on a project and the coordinator suggested that we do the Belbin Team Role survey to maximise our effectiveness. When I showed my wife the readout on the results, her comment was, "Why didn't you just ask me, I could have told you that!"

In our first meeting after the results of the survey were available, team effectiveness increased dramatically, because we adopted the recommended strategy, acknowledged each other's strengths and recognized our allowable weaknesses.

An introduction to Belbin's work is available at Belbin.com

His most recent book is available from Amazon.com in Beyond the Team

How to Build Successful Teams...The Belbin Way (CD-ROM) provides a more detailed introduction and provides a survey which will allow you to analyze your team.

As with all profiles, though, there is one caveat. The team analysis describes the contribution taht a fully functioning person would make, so there is an inbuilt assumption that all team members have equal energy, commitment and understanding of the team goal. These need to be worked on or differences recognized as appropriate.