Six Secrets of Powerful Teams: A Practical Guide to the Magic of Motivating and Influencing Teams Read Online Free PDF

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.

Integrating the models within the Context of the Case Studies
Case study #1
    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