Management Teams: Book Summary
“Management Teams: Why they succeed or fail” corresponds to the original title of the bestseller written by the British scholar Meredith Belbin in 1984 (in 2004 was published a second edition). The book is the result of observations and tests performed by the author during her cooperation with Henley Management College in the conception of a business game based on the computer. From her observations, Belbin finds that certain combinations of personality types achieved a better performance than others. Noted so that, through the application of psychometric tests would be possible predict the success or failure of each team, for that, consequently, would be possible to improve the performance of the less capable teams being enough for that the analysis of the weaknesses of its constitution and the performance of adequate changes.
From her observations, Belbin also identified nine categories of employees that contribute to form the ideal team:
- Plant Type: creative, imaginative and solves complex problems but has little ability to deal with common people;
- Coordinator: mature, confident and safe, clears goals and promotes the decision taking; is a good president even though it’s not necessarily the smartest;
- Modeler: dynamic, outgoing and very emotional, challenges, pressures and finds ways to overcome the barriers but is prone to bad mood attacks;
- Team Worker: sociable, soft, perceptive and accommodative, listens, builds and seeks to avoid frictions but is undecided in more confusing situations;
- Finisher: meticulous, conscientious and anxious, seeks the mistakes and meets the deadlines, but is reluctant to delegate and worries without reason;
- Deployer: disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient and transforms ideas into actions but is somewhat inflexible;
- Resources Investigator: outgoing, enthusiastic and communicative and explores opportunities but easily looses interest after the initial enthusiasm;
- Specialist: stubborn, dedicate and has rare knowledge or skills but only contributes on a narrow front;
- Evaluator-Monitor: strategist, astute, analyses all options and makes his own values judgement, but lacks motivator impulse and the capacity to inspire others.
