Team Role Model

The usefulness of Belbin’s team role model is to utilise each team member's strength to improve the performance of the team. Each role attempts to describe how an individual team member behaves at work and for a team to be successful it should consist of a variety of different roles which complement and reinforce each other. Team Typhoon consists of six members with five different roles. Two of the team members, Amanda and Dylan, have the same role, namely the finisher. Jonas is Typhoon’s leader and is, according to Belbin’s team role model, a shaper. His role as shaper has contributed to efficient team meetings and group activities, as he likes to influence the group decisions and concentrates on setting objectives as well as keeping the discussions

The team builder of our group, Ron, is the one who has been Typhoon’s nurturer. His role has been valuable when the groups opinions have differed as he has tried to hold the team together and helped the group to resolve different issues. Ron has really fulfilled his role as a team builder as he has listened and encouraged each team member and also contributed with a good team spirit. It is clear that Ron’s personality helps him to do this as he is always in a positive mood and permanently has a smile on his face.
Amanda and Dylan are the groups finishers. It is argued that a finisher is one of the most important but also least appreciated member of a team, and to have two individuals of this role may have caused some disputes in our group due to the fact that both Dylan and Amanda are picky with details and point out errors. This has its advantages and disadvantages. While we were often slowed down as a group under time pressure during the assignments, the final works were always carefully examined in order to deliver the best output.
Typhoon’s different team members have all contributed to creative discussions and noble conclusions, but naturally some disputes occurred as all members had different

As mentioned before, the team’s different cultural norms also contributed to Typhoon’s performance and the team consists of six people coming from five different countries. As the iceberg model indicates, the first time the group met we could only see each other’s behaviour and appearance but not understand each other’s values and beliefs. Due to this, it was crucial to get to know each other to understand all of the team members as different cultures have different time orientations, priorities and power relations which can affect the team's performance.
As soon as the team got to know each of the members, we had a better picture of how all acted in a team. Some of us had different time orientations and prioritised school differently but the main factor that kept us together and made us perform efficient was accurate communication skills. We decided from the beginning to create a “WhatsApp” group in order to keep connected and that one always had to contact the group if one could not attend class or meetings. We also made sure to use active listening during our meetings in order make sure that everyone’s opinions and