Teamwork and Belbin's Team Roles

This assignment examines the concept of teamwork and its effectiveness through the lens of Belbin's nine team roles. Students analyze their own team experience during a report project, identifying individual roles, collaborative strengths, and areas for improvement. The analysis culminates in recommendations for fostering optimal teamwork based on Belbin's framework.

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Running Head: Communication in Sciences
Communication in Sciences
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Communication in Sciences
Introduction
The coordination of work process in a group or organizational set up requires delegation and
effective work fulfillment by the members of that particular organization. This report will
therefore address the team performance on Men’s Health Immunization and Food Tax Subsidies,
surveys as commissioned by the head of the of Ministry of Health’s Research Team. The report
is the collective work of five group members, entrusted with the task of surveying and devising
solutions on the topic. Our team was selected to perform the task because of the ability, skill,
professional diversity and leadership, which was relevant for the process.
The Role Coordination and Teamwork
Work process that is carried out in a more connected environment when it comes on role
delegations is usually successful in most cases. The delegation of roles is usually done based on
the skills and capability of an individual to perform that particular task. But the most important
aspect of the role coordination in a collective duty is teamwork and coordination of the players in
the process. People differ in abilities, skills and professions and having people utilize what they
can best perform in an environment of teamwork is the best way of handling a complex work
process such as the report commissioned by the head of Ministry of Health’s Research Team.
Meredith Belbin invented nine team-role styles, which includes the Coordinator who is usually in
charge of the team, the shaper, Plant, the Monitor or Evaluator, the Implementer, the Resource
Investigator, the Team Worker and the Completer or Finisher. An ideal team should have at least
a coordinator, a plant, a team worker and Implementer. This is in reference to Beblin’s
suggestion that an optimum team for effective teamwork should consist of four individuals. But
also a group of five people makes division of roles much easier and the process as evidenced in
this report, for the best possible results.

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Communication in Sciences
The Team and the Roles
Our team was constituted based on what an individual could perform the best, based on their
abilities. It was imperative as a team to have a specialized way of addressing the task based on
roles to simplify the process and obtain the best results possible. Therefore, for the best
functionality of our team, we decided to delegate duties to individual persons, whereby every
person had their role to play towards a common course in a united group. Our team was made up
of five group members with the following characteristics:
Isabel Davis—the Coordinator and Team Leader
Isabel played the role of the leader for the team to put together our efforts in the process to the
expected standards. Her visionary characteristics and the ability to see the bigger picture and the
ability to bring the best out of the team members made her the ideal team leader. Characteristics
of a team leader or basically the coordinator involve providing inspiration and focus for the team
members, and they are naturally confident and have the ability to clarify decisions that guide
their members.
Faith Kettleton—Editor
The editor moderated all the contents of the report and findings. She was in charge of moderating
the report and the contents, decided on what to be included within the report content as well as
editing and removing what was not necessary. In team work scenario, the editor’s role resembles
that of the shaper. The shapers are highly motivated, objective and who are often not concerned
by the social aspects of their teams, rather they are only concerned with success of their team in
the best possible way. The role of the editor was to ensure smooth flow of the process, collated
the survey results and brought the discussion into perspective and also took charge of Men’s
Health Immunization and doubled up as a completer or a finisher.

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Priscilla Reddy—Secretary
Ms Reddy was in charge of our team’s secretarial position. She also took the role of writing
about the Food tax Subsidies in conjunction with another team member Leon Cocker. The
position reflected the role of “plant” in the Belbin’s team roles. The plant is that person who has
the creative sense and an ability to bail out the team in tricky situations. As a secretary, she
doubled up as the contributor on the Food Taxes Subsidies and her contribution is a clear
indication of the creative presence. Most often, the plant personalities are always responsible for
generation of new ideas, but the generation of new ideas was also a collective responsibility of
the whole group.
Leon Cocker—Planner
Leon was at the epicenter of our team’s report structure formulation. He was the one who
planned and came up the structure of our report; and also in association with Priscilla Reddy, he
wrote the section on Food Taxes Subsidies. His expertise enabled us to develop an appropriate
report structure for our survey. His case is a perfect resemblance of the monitor or evaluator in
Belbin’s roles of the team. The evaluator or monitor is relatively similar to the plant individual.
They are the critical thinkers within the team, have a sense of seriousness about the processes
within the group and he provided a spark of enthusiasm within the team.
Rosemarie Nazareth—Tracker
I was in charge of tracking the team’s progress and ensured everything went as planned.
Furthermore, I also took part in the report writing process. This role could be equated to that of
the resource investigator, who is practically sensible and also a great communicator and they are
further open to new ideas generated from the outside. This is a relevant element within the team
unit who can inspire her colleagues to greater levels of inspiration.

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The Team Processes and Leadership
Our group took part in compiling a report about the two topics, that is, Men’s Health
Immunization and the Food Taxes Subsidies. The report had to be compiled by the group’s
collective efforts and teamwork and coordination was crucial. Every team member was assigned
his role according to their ability and the capability to perform that particular role.
The process involved conducting of the surveys in the general public about immunization and
subsidies on food taxes. All the members took part in the devising the survey and administering
it. Team cooperation was fundamental and realizing the successful work progress required
leadership within us to provide guidance in our activities.
Leadership is understandably a great part of a successful team. The delegation of roles aimed at
promoting each member’s participation and the creation of work environment where everyone
had a chance to offer a solution depending on his/her position. Therefore, as the team members
we had to look for inspiration and leadership from ourselves. We provided good leadership to
each other to remind each other about our roles and goals.
The great philosopher Aristotle once stated that “he who has never learned to obey cannot be a
good commander”. This statement carries a heavier meaning in reference to the teamwork,
cooperation and coordination. For instance, given that we had to challenge each other to have the
desired results in our team, obedience and respect of each other’s commands was fundamental in
the performance of our group.
The self-perpetuated leadership in the team enabled the division and subdivision of roles that
included the team leader, the secretary, the planner and the editor among other roles that
enhanced the efficiency and the performance of our team in completing the task set.

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Strengths and Weaknesses
Our team was based on the strengths exhibited by the versatility of the team members. For
example, the work process and the task completion were characterized by the unconditional
cooperation, and in some cases sharing of roles, as in the instance whereby, Priscilla Reddy and
Leon Cocker both tackled the topic on immunization.
The second strength within our team lied on the inspirational leadership provided by the
members themselves and the cooperation. We drew inspiration from each other, challenged each
other and inspired ourselves to achieve the best results. But the most important part was the
respect exhibited in obeying each others’ call of duty.
The other point of note that asserted the strengths of our team is the presence of different roles
assumed by the members based on the Belbin’s roles. In our team, we had a coordinator, a plant,
a monitor evaluator, a shaper among other roles. The most interesting characteristic of the team
was that, we both assumed the role of the teamworker, the good listeners, and the diplomats
responsible for running the team smoothly without unnecessary confrontations.
However, as much as the team had commendable strengths to work together and operate as a
team in the process of the report, there was also a little weakness which was really insignificant
but necessary to mention. In a well coordinated team, the weaknesses may arise from the
challenges that accompany the work processes.
The main challenge was the time constraint and the tight schedules, which meant sometimes the
team members, though not often; had to arrive a little late, but it was not important given every
member had their special parts to address and complete. The working process was made easier
with mutual understanding of each other, which sped up the work process.

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Conclusions and Recommendations
Conclusively, the working environment that is optimum for the successful teamwork activities
requires a sizeable number that is easy to manage. While Meredith Belbin argues that an
optimum team should contain only four people, it also important to note a manageable number of
more than four people could still constitute a successful team.
However, it is beneficial that at least every member is assigned a defined role within the team
that would incorporate responsibility and personal accountability team members. It also is a
challenge for the members to ensure their close working relationships is constantly maintained.
But the most important thing to have within a team; is the group of individuals with capability of
assuming roles as outlined in Belbin’s nine-team roles.
Therefore, based on the performance of my team during the survey and the report process, the
following recommendations are important for the authority:
1. The management should constantly be assigning individuals tasks in team of four people
as it is the optimum number for the operation of the team, as stated in Belbin that any
number beyond this is a group, as individuals would not work closely.
2. It is also important to have a group or a team with a balanced composition of
characteristics, the leaders, the team workers, the plant and the shaper among others for
the balanced operation of the group or that particular team.
3. Finally, the authority should understand the significance of the leadership in teamwork
hence; cultivating the art of leadership should be top of their agenda in assigning roles to
specific individuals within a group.