4. Roles in the team

Subject title Roles in the team

Purpose of the activity To acquaint participants with theories of roles‘ distribution in a team and to provide them an opportunity to get to know better their personal roles in different groups and contexts when performing practical tasks.

Duration 2–3 hours.

Location and tools Projector, large sheets of paper, writing tools, disposable cups, rubbers, threads.

Number of participants 10–20 participants.

Acquaintance/ team building methods Participants are divided into groups of 4-5 people. Each group is given a large sheet of paper and writing tools. Participants in each group are invited to tell about the groups, teams of people they had to participate in (class, university, camps, companies of friends) and to distinguish the main roles, types of people (for example, “an achiever at school”, “a person who makes everyone laugh”, “righteous of the group,” “heart of the company”, etc.), who you met in those groups. Finally, the whole group pictures (draws and names) a team on their poster, where they depict actors performing different roles – their actors and characters. All groups present and comment on their drawings to the whole group of participants.

Practical tasks The practical task will require threads of equal length (approximately 1 m in length), several rubber bands, and several dozen disposable cups. All participants are divided into groups of 5 to 6 people. Each group is given 10 disposable cups, and one rubber band that is tied with as many threads as there are participants in the group. The groups are given the task of building the tallest tower possible, holding the threads of equal length (each participant holds in his hand the end of one thread). Participants may not touch the cups with their hands, but only with the help of a rubber band. The task lasts as long as it takes to complete it (usually about 10–20 minutes).

End of session reflection methods After completing the practical task, participants are invited to discuss:

1. How did you manage to complete the task? What went well? What obstacles did you have?

2. How were the roles distributed in the team based on Raymond Meredith Belbin team roles model?

3. Are these roles reflected in the daily lives of each participant? How?

People have noticed long ago that all members of different communities can be grouped into certain types and groups of people with similar characteristics: temperament, way of thinking, patterns of behaviour, ways of responding to one situation or another.

THEORETICAL INFORMATION

Classical old typologies, existing for centuries, are still relevant. Empedocles singled out four main elements: earth, water, fire, and air, and pointed out that each person also has in himself/herself the manifestations of these elements that are weaker or stronger. Hippocrates typologized people by temperament (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic), Carl Jung divided people into extroverts and introverts, and Ivan Pavlov emphasized the differences in the activity of the central nervous system.

The proposed modern typologies are already becoming more complex and more and more of them are appearing. Some of the proposed models already offer up to a dozen different types that touch on a wide variety of aspects. With regard to typology, it is important to emphasize that there is never a final type of “box” into which a person gets for life and never changes the characteristics of his/her lifestyle or character. Every person, like every member of the team, can fundamentally transform his/her type by experiencing certain experiences, taking certain actions and expressing the intention to change. Of course, this never happens in a short time, but no doubt we should never stereotype one person or another.

Within the framework of this session, two typology models are described that can serve to strengthen and empower the team and help each of its members become familiar with the way they participate in the team.

RAYMOND MEREDITH BELBIN TEAM ROLE THEORY

Raymond Meredith Belbin, PhD in Psychology, has developed a team role theory, which is successfully used and applied in teams of various scales, when allocating tasks and resources. This recognized classification consists of nine key roles, each of them assigned to a specific team member. According to the author of this system, the success of teamwork depends directly on how these nine roles are equally distributed in value over the course of the activity and how different team members with each other’s different talents and abilities accept each other when achieving a common goal.

STRATEGIST-ANALYST

THE SOUL OF THE TEAM MONITOR-EVALUATOR

COORDINATOR

SPECIALIST

PLANT RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR

THE SOUL OF THE TEAM – this role can often play the role of a team’s “psychologist” as this type of person has a well-developed sense of empathy, the ability to discover a common language and support all team members while maintaining a common good atmosphere and motivation within the team. On the other hand, team members in this role may find it more difficult to deal with emerging stressful situations when there is a need to mobilize resources quickly and to suddenly solve an emerged problem. COORDINATOR is a calm and mature team member who is focused on overall success and results, who sees all the details of the activity, and who is able to allocate responsibilities and delegate activities. The coordinator is good at working with human resources by navigating them. On the other hand, he/she may succumb to the influence of others or delegate too much of his/her own

responsibilities to others. PLANT is the team member who has a volatile imagination and a non-standard approach to many things and who is able to combine different details and aspects to create new visions and innovations. This type of person is a great team inspirer and visionary who constantly engages the entire team in new visions and poses new challenges to the team without letting them to get stuck in doing the same tasks. Unfortunately, it is harder for a plant to focus on the finer details and tasks because of its drive to constantly conquer new territories and make new contacts.

RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR is one of the most communicative team members, who is an extrovert, constantly striving to build new collaborative relationships and explore existing and needed resources. This team member has a very positive attitude towards many things, and this can be very useful in some cases, but, in some cases, at the same time, this type of person lacks a more realistic approach to the current situation. STRATEGIST-ANALYST – this team member is the biggest critic of the whole team, of each of its individual members and of the ideas or hypotheses raised. This type of person has strongly developed analytical thinking, but usually lacks the ability to push the team towards action.

MONITOR-EVALUATOR is probably the most responsible team member, who looks at his/her own responsibilities and the responsibilities of the whole team responsibly, scrupulously and attentively. This type of person feels a great responsibility for the qualitative and quantitative indicators the team is seeking for, strives to ensure that all the work is done on time, can sometimes prove to be too strict for his/her team members. SPECIALIST is usually an exceptional team member with highly qualified competencies in a particular important field and who tends to adhere strictly to regulated labour standards and work ethics. Attentive to detail, independent and intelligent. However, such type of person may lack the ability to see the overall broader situation.

IMPLEMENTER stands out for his/her organizational skills, discipline and responsible approach to work. Such a person is able to implement theoretical ideas, but is often inflexible and has difficulty accepting innovation, uncertainty, or what is happening “not according to the rules”.

Raymond Meredith Belbin points out that when forming a team and carrying out various tasks and projects, it is important to take into account these characteristics of team members and accept them as respectful and unique expressions of members. It is also emphasized that when a team is smaller and it consists of several people, the listed roles may be evenly distributed, i.e., each team member can have multiple roles.

META-PROGRAMS

Meta-programs are a set of certain psychological filters that determine how a person receives and processes information, how he/she reacts to external stimuli, and in what style he/she reacts in turn. The most characteristic meta-program or meta-programs of a person can be identified from how a person speaks, behaves, from what his or her life story is, and how he/ she makes decisions or interacts with the outside world.

This model was developed by psychologist and neurolinguistic programming specialist L. Michael Hall. In his book “Figuring out people”, he singled out 51 metaprogram. Here are some of the key meta-programs he describes:

MOTIVATION “FROM” - “TOWARDS”

A person who focuses on avoiding negative consequences is a person with motivation “from”. Such a person is more often characterized by fears, hesitations, the desire to avoid negative aspects. A person who has motivation “towards” is focused on future visions, aspirations, goals, usually sees positive visions and speaks in positive phrases.

ACT - ANALYSE

A person with a tendency to act usually first seeks to perform an action and only then to reflect and analyse the consequences of performing that action. A person with a tendency to analyse first of all seeks to to clarify all the aspects related to the situation and only then to take concrete decisions and actions.

INTERNAL REFERENCE - EXTERNAL REFERENCE

A person with an internal reference relies primarily on his or her internal decisions, conclusions, analyses, and visions, regardless of the feedback from participants in the external environment. A person with an external reference is a person who focuses primarily on the opinions of others, takes into account feedback, responds to criticism and seeks to respond to the needs of others.

SIMILARITY - DIFFERENCE

People looking for similarities are conservative people of community and compassion, who seek to see similarities everywhere, are loyal to their choices, and like stability. People who are focused on differences are constantly striving for innovation, tend to argue, strive for otherness and innovation.

ENTIRETY - DETAILS

People who are focused on the entirety see the global picture perfectly, but tend to lose sight of the individual finer details. Meanwhile, people of details tend to focus on the smaller aspects, they can easily be annoyed by small mistakes, discrepancies.

THINK - FEEL

Individuals who tend to think are rational-minded individuals for whom facts, scientifically based arguments, and decisions made with a “cold mind” are most important. Meanwhile, people who focus on the emotional world are more confident in their emotions and feelings and make decisions based on them. The extremes of other meta-programs are distributed in a similar way: there are people who are process-oriented and people who are result-oriented, individuals tend to work individually and with others, individuals tend to dominate, and those who tend to ask and listen to the instructions of others.

With regard to meta-programs, it is important to emphasize that there are no “good” or “bad” metaprograms. Each meta-program has its own strengths and weaknesses, which each person has the opportunity to develop, just as by weakening the properties of one meta-program, they can strengthen and develop the properties of another meta-program.

For notes, ideas, observations

Subject title

Purpose of the activity

Duration

Location and tools

Number of participants

Acquaintance/ team building methods

End of session reflection methods

Practical tasks

THEORETICAL INFORMATION