Any team, temporary project team, appointed leader or task team must deal with 3 things:
If the task requires a quick solution, hiring an analyst as a team leader is a bad idea.
It's equally foolish to let the Idler be the leader for the Starter - two personalities who both see themselves as leaders will only end up with exhausting conflicts and low efficiency.
And the introverted, restless Closer manager will be inappropriately annoyed by the extroverted and stable Connector.
The right team composition is an absolute prerequisite for success: Professor Meridith Belbin, who has researched teams to find the most effective ones.
Belbin tested 120 different teams across 8 different team types. One of these was Apollo teams.
The Apollo teams consisted of the most intelligent people who were all gathered in a group called
was in honour of the Apollo expedition. Out of the 120 different teams, 25 Apollo groups were put together and their results out of 8 different groups were as follows:
3 times first place, 6 times no. 6, 4 times no. 4
Apollo teams performed worse on average than other groups, but why?
They were difficult to lead
The great strength of the Belbin team concept is that you create a team profile both based on how you perceive yourself as a person, but also how your colleagues perceive you in your working life.
This provides great opportunities to see cohesion and divergences. And it will reveal your comfort zones as well as your unknown strengths.
Belbin's team role research from the 1960s-70s and Native peoples' centuries of medicine wheels are in perfect balance with each other.
