What makes high performance teams

When I conduct outdoor team building activities — the ropes-and-blindfolds kind of stuff — I’m fascinated to see the standard ways in which leaders emerge.

Immediately I’ve finished spelling out the task and given the team their time limit, someone with an idea shouts it out — usually in the form of the initial instruction required to implement it.

That person valiantly perseveres, amid an inevitable cacophony of criticism and competing incompatible proposals.

But as often as not, they are eventually overthrown.

Their replacement — the coup leader — is invariably just as assertive, but often also ends up being dumped by fellow team members.

Sometimes the team succeeds, sometimes it fails.

And when we start analysing the group dynamics that led to whatever outcome, we try to explain how the leadership being offered was a major contributory factor.

In these short, time-constrained tasks, the leader is always the one who’s quick to formulate and articulate a solution.

He or she then also assumes the role of project manager, through which they work at coordinating the group in following their instructions.

They tend to place themselves at the very centre of implementation too, as well as figuring out needed strategy amendments, quality control and anything else that needs doing… leaving most others as idle and disconnected observers.

It’s quite standard that in the post mortems the leader comes in for merciless bashing, not least for failing to control their unruly charges. ‘And where were you?’ I ask such critics. ‘Why were you disruptive, or silent? Why didn’t you step forward to protect your leader?’ (I must admit that such supportive action is not unknown, although it’s usually far too timid, and rarely prevents emerging coups.)

Now I ask the participants to break out the various component roles that came together in their leader (or, in the case of regime change, leaders). Ideas person? Yes. Coordinator? That too. Implementer-in-chief? Yes, again. Time and quality management? Of course. Why, I ask, did the leader take on all these functions? More so that they proved to be far more effective in some than in others.

Enter Meredith Belbin, who in 1981 published his insightful book, Management Teams.

In it he offered an inventory, as he called it, of nine team types, identifying the various traits associated with each.

Each of us has a role, or type, we gravitate towards, which we can figure out through self-assessment and also through evaluation by others.

Dr Belbin’s thesis is that high performance teams contain the various types, each complementing the contributions of others.

So let’s go through Dr Belbin’s inventory, starting with the Plant – the type that launches the team into our brief outdoor tasks.

Plants are creative, easily generating ideas and solving problems.

Yet they’re often poor at communicating their ideas effectively, as we see with our blindfolded and rebellious rope manoeuvrers.

So we must introduce the Coordinator, or Chairman, whose strength is in seeing the big picture, clarifying goals, setting the agenda, and building consensus.

Such people tend to be mature, self-assured and decisive, yet they don’t dominate.

They are, however, known to over-delegate, but not to worry — for next we bring in the implementer.

Implementers take on what others have suggested.

Yet while being efficient and self-disciplined and reliably delivering in a timely way, they can be closed-minded and inflexible, finding it hard to deviate from their own well-thought-out-plans.

OK, so we also need the completer-finishers, perfectionists who go the extra mile to ensure that everything is double-checked and of the highest quality.

Oh, but they tend to worry too much about minor details and are reluctant to delegate to normal — always untrustworthy in their view — human beings.

Fortunately, there also exists the monitor evaluator, that fair, logical and sober character who sees all options and judges accurately.

Such folk move slowly and analytically, and usually in a good direction, but they have a hard time inspiring themselves, never mind those around them.

Allowable weakness

So far we have recruited the Plant, the Coordinator, the Implementer, the Completer-Finisher and the Monitor Evaluator.

But we must still be introduced to the Shaper, the Teamworker, the Resource Investigator and the Specialist.

Like the others, they too have their vital contribution to make, enabled by their positive traits.

And like the others they display the ‘allowable’ weaknesses that come with the package.

Let’s confront the Shaper now, a task-focused leader bursting with nervous energy, highly competitive and very motivated.

Such people are all about ‘shaping’ their own and their team’s achievements but, and here we go with their downside, they are so aggressive, they can easily provoke others and offend their feelings.

Thank goodness there are also Teamworkers, cooperative, mild and diplomatic individuals who smooth over conflicts, calm situations and keep the team running.

The extravert, enthusiastic Resource Investigator rushes around externally, pursuing great contacts and opportunities… but oh dear, forgets small details and loses interest once their initial enthusiasm has waned.

Thank heavens for the single-minded, self-starting, dedicated Specialist, who enjoys providing knowledge and skills that are in rare supply.

Needless to say, Specialists are restricted to contributing in only their narrow area of expertise.

Many of us feel at reasonably home in more than one role.

Depending on such factors as the subject matter and what roles have filled by other team members, we are flexible to fill at least some of the remaining unmet needs.

What we don’t want though, is too many people of any one type.

And thanks to Dr Belbin, we have a helpful language in which to talk about it all.

meldon@symphony.co.ke