There are many ways to approach forming a team and making it optimal in its efficiency and effectiveness.

It is important to establish from the outset what the goals of the team are at any moment.

What the team is set up to achieve will clearly influence the choice of members and, importantly, the approach.

This blog will regularly outline aspects to teamwork and team building. It will stimulate ideas, and, within the Smart Tips website, you can find psychometric tools and further information which will help you develop your teams further.

Belbin Team Roles

One interesting approach to team building is the consideration of what Meredith Belbin identified and the nine team roles that make up an ideal team for making progress. The nine roles, with their distinctive names, are as follows:

The Plant

“The Plant” is a creative individual, with innovative ways of thinking. These employees can be unconventional and stimulate alternative ways of approaching problems and scenarios.

In the Smart Tips battery of personality assessments, the Hogan and Saville WAVE assessments will be useful for evaluating how creative and innovative employees are in your organization. From the analyses, and via our in-depth feedback, people with high levels of creativity, and who also display innovative, alternative approaches which challenge the status quo, can be identified, and utilized to their best when formulating teams.

The assessments also indicate how to manage these employees well and help you gain insight into their areas for development and nurturing.

Another category for the member of the team is called just that:

The Team-worker

This kind of worker is adaptable and conscientious in bringing the projects and ideas to completion.

They are co-operative, compliant and show high levels of empathy and diplomacy.

The Personal Profile Assessment (PPA) is a tool which can give useful information about this type of personality, with its report giving information and advice on how best to manage and develop Team-workers. The EQ-i-360 assessment can also be utilized to give results on the attributes of a team-worker from various viewpoints, notably, from people who know the Team-worker well.

The Coordinator

Often management practice is divided into ‘The Three Cs’. These functions are: Communication, Collaboration and Coordination.

Within the third function, Coordination, the Coordinator identifies the team objectives and delegates work to the team members, drawing on their skills and personal attributes. To this extent, the Coordinator must show high empathy.

Smart Tips has, within its battery of assessments, tools which evaluate Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Among these are the EQ-I 2.0 and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire.

The personality assessments based on the Big Five Personality Factors, for example, the NEO-PI-3 and the NEO-PI-R, also identify the factors of personality which are present within this personality type. Goal-oriented and confident, the Coordinator spreads the teamwork accordingly to achieve the results that the team fundamentally wants.

The Resource Investigator

A highly inquisitive member of the team, the Resource Investigator is sociable and likes to develop contacts and opportunities. They are optimistic, perhaps overly so, and they may not persevere with tasks over a significant period.

As with all the team member types, the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) is particularly relevant for assessing strengths and points for further enhancement of a person’s characteristics at work, so team dynamics and efficiency are optimized. The HDS is also taken with the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) and the Motivations, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) to give a rounded picture of the person, including their positive characteristics and their work values.

The Monitor Evaluator

The Monitor Evaluator has strong reasoning ability, so the General Intelligence Assessment (GIA) will reveal these qualities in such a worker. The GIA measures fluid intelligence, which means it assesses abilities of the mind that can be developed. Reasoning, along with Perceptual Speed, Spatial Visualization, Word Meaning and Number Speed and Accuracy are evaluated.

The Monitor Evaluator is strategic in thinking but can lack drive and be reluctant to communicate extensively. These qualities are also identifiable via the personality assessments that Smart Tips has.

The Specialist

The Specialist has highly developed self-motivation and conscientiousness.  Specialists have a high learning, yet sometimes limited, approach to work, so the Hogan and the Saville Wave assessments are applicable here. To further assess the high potential of employees, the High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI) is also an invaluable tool to utilize. With optimal ranges of results, the HPTI presents a clear indication of where development can occur for each employee.

The Implementer

Within a team, the drive to prepare strategically and get results efficiently is often required to a great extent, which is where the Implementer is very capable. To assess whether such a person is also capable of adapting to circumstances, the PPA, with its clear reporting methods, or the Saville WAVE personality assessment reports, are very informative, plus great for presenting ideas for employee development.

The Shaper

Thriving within an intense, time-driven scenario, the Shaper is a risk taker who also likes to be assertive. The Hogan personality assessments will reveal to what extent these aspects to personality are within the employee, the variation of approach also being made clear when under pressure. The Personal Profile Assessment is also good at making these traits clear under pressure.

The Completer Finisher

Fittingly, to complete the line-up, the extremely diligent and focussed Completer Finisher wants high standards and is acutely detail orientated. This may be excessive, so assessing these aspects to personality will assist colleagues in managing and being managed by such a person. The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire will give indications on how this worker develops relationships and understands the emotions of self, plus colleagues.