Phew!

I’m looking at the notes we made back in week 4 or 5 when I asked the team what Belbin roles they thought they were.

	Gabrielle	Cherie	Jindina	X -tina
Resource/Investigator		*	*	*
Implementer	*	*
Coordinator		*	*
Plant		*	*
Shaper	*
Monitor evaluator		*		*
Team worker		*	*
Completer-Finisher	*	*	*
Specialist		*		*

We never met out 4^th member – Christina, the Ukranian figure skater, for all we know she could have been the alter-ego of an obese middle-aged white ware salesman. We just guessed Christina’s character from the few emails we had. Who knows how the dynamic would have developed if she had been present.

After spending a bit of time Cherie I have grown to appreciate her enthusiasm – of course she would look at herself and go “yes” that’s me!  I would give a “yes” to her being the Implementer, a coordinator, Monitor-evaluater  and team worker. He experience and confidence with presentation was a real asset to our team. 

Jindina was the member who had the clearest vision of how the report and seminar should read. She set very high standards for herself and our team which hopefully resulted in better marks all around. (smiley face).

 

Fortunately  we all had a bit of the completer-finisher in us.( I can’t comment on Christina who was overseas when we were completing and finishing) and I think that kept us focused on the goal – to get out report and seminars out in some kind of order.  Probably the worrying and reluctance to delegate caused conflict as we all wanted to be part of the very final part of writing the report.

On reflection  the worst thing about these groups is that you don’t have enough time to iron out the bumps and actually really appreciate your team members and find a fulfilling (both in terms of outputs and personal growth) way of working together.

I seldom have problems in my job either communicating with my team or my customers. Misunderstandings do occur but nowhere near the frequency they occurred in our group. I was the one who outwardly got most upset on more than one occasion with my team members. When I got upset I made sure they knew about it and made sure they clarified what had actually been agreed.  (Except   Christina -  who missed out on the experience of  having me phoning  to say "that's not what we agreed"). I’m a bit of a shaper – inclined to be blunt.  I’m sorry if Jindina and Cherie weren’t comfortable with that because I do feel it was a privilege to work with them.  I think open communication helped us complete and finish to a high standard and personally it gave me a better understanding into myself, the inflexible implementer. 

Reference

Belbin, R. M. (2010). Management teams:  Why they succeed or fail. Oxford,

             United Kingdom: Elsevier.