Hybrid working is here to stay, for all manner of businesses worldwide.
Wherever we work, each of us brings our own combination of Team Role strengths to a team. Once we are able to recognise what we contribute (and value others’ strengths too), we are six times more likely to be engaged at work, and are able to collaborate more effectively.
Here are five of the most common challenges confronting hybrid teams – and how to use the language of Belbin Team Roles to promote personal development and more effective hybrid teamwork.
1. Communicate – let’s talk individual differences and perceptions
It isn’t just the technology. Hybrid working presents (and exacerbates) many difficulties around communication.
Some are likely to speak more than others in a team setting. One person might initiate a discussion with a view to achieving consensus, whilst another wants to debate the merits of a proposition and someone else is trying to thrash out the details.
When we can understand the reasons behind someone else’s approach, it becomes easier to navigate conversations where perspectives differ, even if we aren’t able to hold those conversations face-to-face.
2. Co-ordinate – meet and work ‘on purpose’
All too often, ‘faultlines’ can develop, and those working remotely are left out of important exchanges and decisions.
Belbin helps teams identify who to include at each stage of a project or task, so that projects and meetings are considered and deliberate, and based on contribution rather than location.
Those with particular creative strengths can be included at the idea generation phase, whilst those adept at planning are held back until an idea has been considered and vetted.
(For more information on the characteristics of each Team Role, please visit www.belbin.com.)
3. Connect – personal and professional connections are crucial to our wellbeing
Team Role behaviours – among other factors – can influence how and where we prefer to work.
Belbin’s 2020 research demonstrated that people most missed meeting with colleagues face-to-face and the camaraderie of teamwork.
The Belbin Individual report explores the working environment likely to suit someone best and can help teams and managers facilitate discussions around preferences, frustrations and expectations.
Belbin’s research (after the first UK lockdown) discovered that those with strengths around productivity and efficiency tended to have a more positive experience of remote working than those with creative strengths.
Much creativity requires collaborative energy, and even individual creativity relies on interaction or spontaneous conversations.
Understanding Belbin strengths helps individuals and teams to devise strategies around innovation, ensuring that teams don’t become stagnant or isolated.
5. Culture – help newcomers and established teams
When the pandemic first forced many teams into remote working, those teams had already established cultures and ways of working.
Now, teams ‘onboard’ newcomers who have never met teammates in person. Here, the Belbin language offers a shorthand to help team members utilise the strengths present in the team.
The Belbin Team report (which collates data from each team members) gives an overview of the team’s culture, enabling teams to ask: what do we do best and where do we struggle? What are our strategies for developing what’s best in us and managing the rest? Where is our culture now and where do we want it to be? What do we have to do to get where we want to go?
Wherever your team is working, make it work for you. You can find out more about Belbin Team Roles at www.belbin.com.
Victoria Brown is a writer and Head of Research and Development at Belbin. She works closely with Dr Belbin, applying and researching his latest insights into teams, organisations and the Belbin Team Role methodology through product development, papers and thought leadership content.