Summary

Hidden or overt issues in work relationships can quietly harm team performance.
Belbin Team Roles provide a neutral framework and shared language to help teams express differences constructively.
It’s important to distinguish whether a problem is widely experienced or specific to a particular relationship.
Working Relationship reports can unravel tensions and reveal complementary strengths.
Psychological safety, structured feedback, and mutual understanding help resolve tensions and build more effective workplace bonds.

Managing difficult working relationships is key to ensuring team success.

Often relationships at work fail quietly. But hidden conflicts and 'silent fails' in relationships can be just as harmful to the team as palms on desks and raised voices.

Belbin Team Roles can help by providing a common language and framework for understanding individual behaviour and strengths.

By identifying individuals' preferred ways of working, Belbin Team Roles can help to reduce misunderstandings and conflicts between team members.

Let's examine how...

Does Your Team Play By The Rules Explain Your Reasoning

Self-awareness

Often, conflict arises in teams because people aren't aware of how their behaviour and interactions affect others.

In her research into self-awareness, Dr Tasha Eurich discovered that, although most people believe they are self-aware, only 10-15% really are.

In a work context, this means that many people are unlikely to be conscious of the impact of their behaviour on others in the team.

Understanding our impact on others

To help increase self-awareness and mutual understanding in the team, the Belbin process includes Observer Assessments – structured feedback from colleagues.

This means that results aren't solely reliant on an individual's self-understanding. Using Belbin, we can start to understand whether the strengths an individual thinks they have are seen and appreciated by others.

This feedback can reveal hidden strengths and act as a discussion-starter.

Perhaps the individual is playing out of role?
Perhaps the team’s expectations of that person don’t align with what they believe to be their strengths?
Maybe they have aspirations to play a different role?

Working through the Belbin process – both as individuals and collectively as a pair or team – can open up crucial discussion about behaviour anchored in real-world examples. The language of Belbin Team Roles helps defuse conversations, so that they don’t result in personal attacks.

Owning and Communicating our Strengths

The Suggested Work Styles page (of the Individual report) can help with appropriate phrases to help people articulate their contributions, explaining how that person works best, so that others know what to expect.

This page of the report is based on the four strongest Team Role contributions. We all have more than one contribution to make to the success of a team.

John Yellow Page 8 Showcase Belbin Team Role Report

Belbin Team Report Team Role Circle Top Two Team Roles Showcase

Analysing Team Culture

Sometimes, difficulties arise when one Team Role 'influence' is dominant in the team.

For example, consider a team high in Resource Investigator and Shaper strengths. This team would be fast-moving and dynamic, taking ideas and running with them.

A strong Monitor Evaluator joins the team, and begins to point out potential drawbacks and takes time to arrive at a decision.

This person may be seen as cynical, pessimistic and obstructive, when in fact, they are simply contributing to the team in a different way.

The Team Role Circle (in the Team report) can help to identify these difficulties by showing the spread of Team Roles within the team and opening up discussions around the value of varied perspectives.

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Exploring Working Relationships in Depth

Once each person has completed the Self-Perception Inventory (and obtained Observer Assessments), their data can be combined to produce a Working Relationship report (pictured).

This report illustrates the similarities and differences in Team Role approaches between two people, pinpointing potential sources of conflict and identifying areas for discussion.

Where Team Roles are similar, we can discuss competition or 'treading on toes' and how to assign work more effectively.

Where Team Roles are very different, there is often scope for the pair to work well together, so long each person understands and appreciates the other's contribution.

Belbin Working Relationship Report Jan Cobalt And Lisa Black Showcase

Belbin Working Relationship Report John Yellow And Lisa Black Showcase

Creative Space Versus Drive

In this example, Lisa, who has a top Team Role of Plant, might clash with strong Shaper, John.

Lisa is likely to need space and time to explore new ideas, whereas John will be focusing on goals and deadlines.

If Lisa understands that John will be concerned with timings and John gives Lisa space to create, the two are likely to work together more effectively.

And since the two share the Implementer role, each is likely to have an eye to practical considerations. This commonality can help them to navigate their differences in approach successfully.

Team Role opposites

Each Team Role cluster has an opposite. The dominant Shaper and the supportive Teamworker. The creative Plant and the practical Implementer.

When it comes to difficult relationships, Team Role opposites are often the cause of the disconnect.

For a Resource Investigator, the Completer Finisher’s unrelenting insistence on pinning down every last detail might feel tiresome and draining.

For the Completer Finisher, the Resource Investigator’s enthusiasm without apparent substance might be fanciful and unnerving.

Failing to see the value of the other’s contribution, each does their best to ignore the other.

In this situation, Team Role learning and understanding is key.

Once each person has identified the value of the other person’s contribution – and devised a strategy to deal with it effectively – the relationship can develop more successfully.

Opening Dialogue and Negotiating a New 'Relationship Contract'

Using the language of Team Roles can open up discussions towards a solution.

The first step can be as simple as articulating our styles clearly.

Take a Shaper who is in the habit of making final decisions before the Monitor Evaluator has been given time to reflect and advise.

The Shaper is anxious to move things along, whilst the Monitor Evaluator is left feeling undermined.

The Monitor Evaluator might say, “I need time to arrive at a decision, and I become disengaged when I’m not consulted”.

The Shaper might reply, “There comes a point when discussion needs to make way for action. I’m always keenly aware of that deadline.”

With this in mind – and with a greater understanding of the dynamics of the working relationship – the terms of the new ‘relationship contract’ can be negotiated.

The Shared Language of Team Roles

Learning to use the key Team Role concepts in a flexible way is essential for developing the skills that make for good teamwork.

Teams need to learn the language of Team Roles to enable them to work effectively together and to appreciate one another’s contributions, while retaining their individuality and natural aptitudes.

Without this shared language, there is a greater risk of making an unhelpful personal attack and damaging relationships.

Are there ‘silent fails’ in your team?

Maybe it’s time to find out.

Next steps

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