Dr Meredith Belbin defined a Team Role as:
“A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way”.
Each Team Role has particular strengths and allowable weaknesses, and an important contribution to a team.

Sometimes the strength of a particular Team Role has to be bought at the cost of a Team Role weakness. For example, a person whose preferred role is Monitor Evaluator is likely to be objective, impartial and good at weighing up all possibilities to make a carefully considered decision. Yet someone with these strengths may well come across as unenthusiastic or even boring. Without Team Role understanding, this failure to inspire the team might be allowed to obscure the individual’s strengths. Team Role weaknesses can be comprehended as the price to be paid for the strength, and as such, they are termed “Allowable”.

So, we do not need to be perfect! However, this should not be used as an excuse!

No, not exactly. Psychometrics is concerned with measuring psychological variables such as intelligence, aptitude, and personality traits.
Belbin is concerned with behaviour: what others in your team see and experience. Whilst this may be influenced by your personality, this is not the only factor.
Moreover, the behaviour assumed may not correspond with what others observe. Whereas many psychometric tests rely on self-reporting, the Belbin assessment uses 360° feedback to give you an accurate idea of how you fit in a team.

The reports present the preferable, manageable and not preferable Team Roles of individuals so that their strengths can be identified, developed and communicated in such a way, that the whole process will result in self understanding, mutual effort and fulfillment.

Personality is one factor which influences our behaviour. However, there are many others, which may also come into play. Since Belbin considers how you behave and contribute within a team, it is this mix of factors, which produces your behaviour.
Individuals might consider themselves to be shy, but when given the opportunity to act as team leader, prove forceful and assertive in leading the team towards its goals. In this instance, the importance of personality is subordinated to the field constraints - the change in job environment, which brings forth an altogether different way of behaving.

On a personal level, your conscious and unconscious behaviors can be identified, enabling you to understand and introduce yourself better both socially and professionally.

Within an organization, it is easier for all employees and management, to collaborate more effectively, when they know what to expect from each other in different circumstances. Especially, the reports produced by the Observers’ feedback, provide a more complete picture about the unknown behavior and potential.

In some circumstances, an individual will need to forego using the leading or preferred Team Role and adopt another in its place. It may be that there is no good example of a particular role within the team, or perhaps that another person is already contributing on common, preferred ground. Such a shift from preferred behaviour is known as “making a Team Role sacrifice”.

Your Belbin Self-Perception profile (SPI) gives you an idea of how you see your role within a team. However, the characteristics you identify may not be the behaviour that others would pinpoint or value.
The Belbin Observer Assessment (OA) gives 360-degree feedback on a person's Team Roles. The OA should be completed by those who work or have worked recently with the person they are asked to assess. For a full report, a minimum of four Observers is required, but six is preferable. Ideally, a set of observers should be chosen among colleagues and managers who are familiar with the individual’s behaviour and know the individual well in a work environment. When completing profiles, candidates may choose their own observers or the allocation can be made by their facilitator or manager. The OA is designed to inform and broaden the Self-Perception profile and should take 5-10 minutes to complete.

If an Observer Assessment is completed in an indiscriminate manner, or if an observer shows excessive prejudice, either in favour of, or against, the observed, e-interplace® will not accept the assessment.

Observer Assessments provide independent evidence about an individual’s team roles. A Self-Perception test is reliant on an individual’s sense of personal realism. Some people answer in terms of how they would like to contribute, rather than how they really behave.

Team Roles develop during the course of a career. Whilst it is unusual for someone’s Team Role profile to reverse completely, it is subject to change. Certain roles could mature as a result of experience and conscious attention, or circumstantially – in response to the demands of a new job or promotion, for example. For Belbin consultants, the level of Team Role development is more important than the evidence.

When you complete the Belbin® Self-Perception Inventory you will receive - among other reports - a ‘fingerprint’ of your Team Role preferences. Very few people display characteristics of just one Team Role. Most people have 3 or 4 preferred roles, which can be adopted or eschewed as the situation requires.

You should take on and develop these roles as much as possible, because this is where you are likely to make your mark. You should also be aware of your lowest roles and find a strategy to avoid having to play them. Try to work with people with the opposite strengths and weaknesses to your own.

Sharing your Team Role preferences enhances understanding and gives members of the team reasonable expectations of one other, helping to avoid disappointments and misunderstandings.

Belbin uses the Self-Perception Inventory (SPI) which was formulated and developed by Dr Meredith Belbin, following extensive research at Henley Management College. The inventory is made up of seven sections, each of which presents a different scenario to the candidate. The candidate allocates marks to the statements, according to how well they feel that a statement reflects their working style. It takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.

We tend not to refer to Belbin as a test, since there are no right or wrong answers, only different Team Roles and different contributions to be made. Belbin aims to concentrate on strengths and positive contributions, so although weaknesses are identified, these are viewed as the flipside of displaying a Team Role strength. Armed with the language of Belbin Team Role Theory, the team can capitalise on an individual's strengths and manage weaknesses. Similarly, we avoid the terminology "questionnaire," simply because the term implies either an opinion poll or a vague and non-research-based magazine questionnaire. It is an inventory rather than a questionnaire because all of the scores are very precisely logged, then processed, in order to produce the results in a Belbin report. Once submitted, responses to the Belbin SPI are analysed by e-interplace®, which calculates and norms the individual profile against a large bank of data.

We can issue you an administrator’s link, which you can use to profile individuals without having to purchase e-interplace®.
Upon request for this service, you will be asked to specify the number of tests you require.* You will then be sent an email from Belbin containing a hyperlink to an administrator's page, where you can enter the email addresses of your participants to issue each of them an individual Self-Perception Inventory (SPI) hyperlink. No candidate will be able to see the responses or report for another candidate.
The online tests will still cost you €50 per person (including the opportunity to add up to 6 observer assessments for the same price). The administrator's link remains valid for 2 years, during which time Self-Perception and Observer Assessments can be completed as required. Reports are then emailed to the administrator automatically after the SPI has been completed. If using observer assessments too, (4 or more observer assessments are required) reports can be requested at any stage during the completion process.

*Please note that we cannot offer partial refunds for any unused tests, nor can tests be added to an administrator's page once issued.

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer team/group reports online. If you think you will require team reports, please contact our office.
Team/group profiling requires collection of more data, so please contact us well before your deadline!

It is so simple! A Belbin Self Perception Inventory (SPI) will only cost you € 50 including VAT. After reception of payment, you will be sent a link to a webpage where vital information on the SPIs right completion will be exhibited. After reading it, you will enter the inventory field, where our scenarios await your weighting.

You will receive 4 to 8 reports informing you of your strengths and areas of attention.