The Belbin Test: To help or to hinder?

Dr Meredith Belbin

During a ‘Managing PR’ module, our University seminar group where given a formative task to build a team, prepare a PR brief and pitch for work. The division of the group into teams lay very dependent upon the outcome of The Belbin Test.  This test claims to describe why some teams work and others just seem to hit the rocks. In 1970 Dr Meredith Belbin’s research identified that the success or failure of a team was not dependent on intellect, but more on behaviour. His research developed to distinguish separate clusters of behaviour that formed team roles. The test is used today to distinguish which teams are likely to succeed depending on the idyllic combination of team roles. After completing The Belbin Test and working within a group that supposedly accounted for a successful team, I have questioned the reliability of Dr Belbin’s test, finding myself slightly taken back by my assigned role. Am I really a team worker/ shaper?

According to Belbin’s test, my primary preferred team role, with 26 points, was team worker- “Socially orientated, rather mild and sensitive”. Although I think this describes me best in social situations, I had thought (and secretly hoped) that within a working environment I would have taken the role of a co-ordinator- “Calm, self-confident and controlled”. But with only 11 points, I’m obviously not a co-ordinator!

My original Belbin Test Results

My secondary preferred team role, with 16 points, was shaper- “Highly strung, outgoing and dynamic”. If it’s assumed that an organisation considers your primary and secondary preferred team roles, surely I am a perfect example of a flaw in the research; how can a candidate be “rather mild and sensitive” yet “highly strung” at the same time? Does this exemplify a contradiction within Belbin’s theory? And if it does, are organisations to follow the results of the test, possibly hindering the success of the team?

So, looking at this collectively, if organisations rely on The Belbin Test during the job interview stages, should they consider a candidates primary and secondary roles? If they are, it’s possible for them to discover a contradiction similar to mine. Should the organisations even be influenced by the results at all? Since the test was designed in 1970, people have changed. Behaviours have changed. Acceptances and expectations have changed and work dynamics have changed. Responsibility is very much spread evenly across the workforce, and not in the hands of a particular team role. No longer do we look to employ ‘specialists’, as surely it’s expected that we are all specialists of our own fields?  I recently did a summer work placement at 02 Marketing in London. There wasn’t ‘Implementers’ on the tail of workers to organise meetings and push for deadlines. Instead, regardless of the employee’s behavioural characteristics, or job description, it was each individual’s responsibility to achieve all the behaviours including in each team role. Because of this stint in industry, I now feel that it’s assumed a candidate for a job should encompass each and every type of behaviour, appropriate to the success of their organisation.

So, does The Belbin Test help or hinder? It’s difficult to say. Although I don’t want to sit on the fence about this, the contradiction in my results is pushing me towards hinder, but the popularity and international high regard is pushing me towards help.  I’m going to have a think about this.

Tricky, very tricky.