Is Belbin's shaper really TMS's thruster-organizer? An empirical investigation into the correspondence between the Belbin and TMS team role models

Rosemary K. Rushmer
The Authors

Rosemary K. Rushmer, Dundee Business School, University of Abertay Dundee, Dundee, UK
Abstract

With the growth in teamworking, organizations are increasingly turning to team role models in the hope of enhancing the effectiveness of their teams. However, such models can be both expensive to buy-in and administer. Examines significant similarities between the two major team role models - Belbin and TMS models. Argues that if the two systems/assessments can be used interchangeably, organizations could make considerable savings in both time and money. Finds no simple, direct correspondence between the two models (despite close congruence between the role behavioural indicators). Finds a small degree of predictability in some roles (none in others, especially the "creative" and "leadership" roles). Suggests that generally, the Belbin roles do tend to gravitate towards the relevant quadrant of the TMS wheel, but not directly to an identifiable role. Proposes that further research is needed to see if this tendency is a robust and significant finding.

Article type: Theoretical with Application in Practice, Survey.

Keywords: Individual Behaviour, Leadership, Personality, Roles, Team Building, Team Management Index.

Content Indicators: Research Implications* Practice Implications** Originality* Readability**

Leadership & Organization Development Journal
Volume 17 Number 1 1996 pp. 20-26
Copyright © MCB University Press ISSN 0143-7739
Introduction

Working in a team is now a way of life, as organizations adopt practices like TQM, move towards a flatter organizational structure through de-layering and strategically demand a workforce that is flexible, multiskilled and empowered to act under their own initiative (Hicks and Bone, 1990; Wellins et al., 1991). We can see behind each of these trends, the presence of the work team (Marchington, 1993). As Tom Peters says:

Wholesale worker involvement must become a national priority if we are to create the competitive strengths necessary just to maintain, let alone improve, our national economic well being. The self-managing team should become the basic organisational building block (Peters, 1988, p. 297).

It would appear almost, that the team is emerging as the unit of an organization where competitive advantage is won or lost. (Heany, 1989; Larson and LaFasto, 1989; Oraburn, 1990). Consequently, methods for assessing, monitoring and improving team effectiveness are of prime concern for managers, both line and staff. Several authors and theorists offer suggestions for improving the effectiveness and productivity of teams in the workplace (Brooks, 1990; Goodman, 1988; Hemingway, 1991). Other literature suggests that the way to cope with, and capitalize on the team-situation is to engage in team-building work (Brooks, 1990; Goodman 1988).

Currently, in this area, two dominant schemes tower above all others. Both widely used in British industry, each offers proposed, ideal patterns or standards of exemplary teamworking, these are Belbin (Belbin, 1981; 1993) and the Team Management Systems (TMS) (Margerison and McCann, 1985; 1989; 1990; TMS (UK) Ltd 1990; 1992a; 1992b).
The Team Management Systems (TMS) model

The TMS model attempts to detail the roles people will adopt within a team by virtue of their working preferences. The individual is assessed using the TMI (team management index - an in-house, multi-item questionnaire, TMS (UK) Ltd 1990). An individual's major role and any subsidiary roles are thus identified (usually one major and two subsidiary roles are identified for each individual). Effective teamwork is explained as, the team in which all the necessary work functions are filled by people whose preferences lie in those areas. This is the idea of "balancing" the team. It is the attempt to get the team composition complete so that all the roles are covered (and stronger than this), are covered by people who have a preference to adopt those roles. Finally, the team is held together by a person who practises "linking skills". Thus, a disparate set of individuals with preferences for working in a variety of ways are harnessed, their different orientations unified to bring about a team that has a repertoire of work preferences which cover all the necessary work functions vital for effective teamwork. In this way, all aspects of the job are done and the team is maintained. The team's strength originates in its harnessed diversity.

These preferred team roles are represented in the team management wheel (see Figure 1 ) (Margerison and McCann, 1990). It is a way of demonstrating how people relate to the work functions that must necessarily be carried out in the effective team (advising, innovating, promoting, developing, organizing, producing, inspecting and maintaining). Margerison and McCann express it this way:

The team management wheel provides an integrated map of people's work preferences and relates them to the key roles that are necessary in a high performing team. (Margerison and McCann, 1990, pp. 29-30.)

An essential feature of this model is that these eight team roles form a complete whole. The circle (or wheel as the authors describe it), visually displays this idea of balancing the disparate parts (roles) of the team to form a stronger integral and comprehensive totality. These eight work functions are broadly divided into four quadrants (work themes) in the wheel (advising, exploring, organizing and controlling) with team members being said generally to share the characteristics of the quadrant that they occupy with others. Each quadrant has an archetypal role associated with it. Reporter-adviser for advising; explorer-promoter for exploring; thruster-organizer for organizng; controller-inspecter for controlling. "In between", the other roles bridge the quadrant sharing the characteristics of the two quadrants that they span, (e.g. the creator-innovator shares both advising and exploring characteristics, see Figure 1). Research attempting to confirm the validity and reliability of the model has been conducted extensively in-house (see for example Davies, 1985; 1992).
The Belbin model

The work of Belbin predates TMS by several years (Belbin, 1981; 1993). Belbin's work also looks at the idea of complementary roles in a team, with different individuals having measurable preferences for working within teams in different sorts of ways. The model similarly, promotes the idea of an effective team as one that has a full complement of roles active within it. Belbin initially identifies the roles of company worker (CW), chairman (CH), shaper (SH), plant (PL) and resource investigator (RI) as essential in the successful team. He says:

A team that can draw upon an ideal CW, CH, SH, PL and RI might seem well equipped to cope with all the vicissitudes that the future can offer; for such a team is well equipped in terms of leadership, ideas and capacity for action (Belbin 1981, p. 68).

Further research he conducts suggests that this team is still incomplete, and he adds: "In fact the balance is less complete than appears at first sight" (Belbin, 1981, p. 68).

To these five roles he adds three more, a monitor-evaluator (ME), to judge the real merits of any ideas, the teamworker (TW) to support team members and to have a "lubricating effect" on the team and finally the completer-finisher (CF) who ensures that actions are followed through to completion. (Doubt has been placed on the validity of the structure of Belbin's self-perception inventory. Furnham et al., 1993 claims that it has little psychometric support.)
Similarities between the two models

The crucial, central argument in both schemes then, is very similar. It is worth summarizing the areas of similarity between the two models. Each suggests that:
certain roles/work functions exist in teamworking projects and that these have to be carried out in order for the successful conception, implementation and completion of any project;
individuals prefer to adopt certain of these roles (in teams) and not others;
there are eight team roles;
individuals, although generally having a preference for one major role, can slip reasonably easily into minor roles;
effective teams are the ones where all the team roles are covered, so effective team performance is strongly associated with the "balancing" of the team;
once balanced, in order to produce synergy, the diverse and complementary roles need to be co-ordinated and integrated together either under the auspices of a leader or through linking skills;
their respective instrument will measure an individuals team role thus providing, for organizations, a diagnostic tool to be used as a first step towards creating/maintaining more effective teams.

In addition:
because both models draw on Jung's psychological types one would expect them to express these roles from within a similar frame of reference;
in terms of behavioural indicators, at least six of the Belbin roles seem to have a direct counterpart in the TMS model;
the names given to these corresponding roles are also very similar in nature, e.g. Belbin's completer-finisher and TMS's concluder-producer or Belbin's monitor-evaluator and TMS's controller-inspector.

Table I illustrates the degree of correspondence in both name and behavioural indicators between the two models.

On examination of the table, both models seem quite alike, with similar structures and some matching results. One might ask questions like "Is Belbin's shaper really TMS's thruster-organizer simply known by another name?" If this is the case then to a certain extent both models could be used inter-changeably. Such a move might provide a major benefit to organizations (and a threat to the Belbin and TMS organizations). Companies being able to test individual team members using one model and simply translate their results in terms of the other model and be able to tap into its literature, etc. free of charge.

However, there is of course, an epistemological twist here because it is to be expected that if both instruments are reliable (consistent) and valid (actually measure what they claim to measure) then they should arrive at very similar roles because that is what is there to be found. In this sense, correspondence between the two models seems to suggest an (albeit untested) air of ontological reality to the models.
Focus of the investigation

Given all the above, the research question and focus for this article is: If one knows the role a person is gauged to have under one model, is it possible to predict the role the person will be measured as having under the alternative system?

The aims and objectives of this article then follow on, logically as,
To identify the individual's team role as measured by the Belbin and TMS instruments.
To examine if there is correspondence between the Belbin and TMS roles.
For those roles that do not seem to have an obvious corresponding "counterpart", to see how these translate across in terms of the other model.
The study
Subjects

The subjects were 66 students on the MBA programme and 12 teaching and administrative staff at the University of Abertay, giving a total of 78 subjects.

The ranges in age were from the early 20s to late 50s, with a wide mix of professions and occupations in both the public and private sector. Most of the subjects were working in a managerial position of some kind, although some students were temporarily unemployed (but with aspirations to re-enter a management position).
Procedure

Each subject's Belbin team role was assessed using Belbin's self-perception inventory (Belbin, 1981) although aware that Belbin has updated his work into a computer-based assessment it was decided to use the self-perception inventory for two reasons. First, this is the instrument that is widely and freely available to practising managers and, second, it was felt important to keep the assessment between the two instruments as alike and similar as possible, for this reason keeping them both as paper and pencil tests seemed the most appropriate thing to do.

The subjects team management profile (TMS) was assessed using the team management index (TMS, 1990). The two profiles were then compared.
Results
Rationale behind the analysis of results

Where the TMS role is referred to, normally this will mean the major team role that the individual is assessed to have, as measured by the TMI.

The Belbin self-perception inventory is scored by adding together all the choices the individual has selected (and weighted) for the behavioural indicators associated with a particular role. According to the norms tables the following ratings may be given to this score low, high and very high. To bring these results in line with the TMS analysis, where an individual gains a high score this/these are taken to be a minor role(s) and where there is a very high score this is taken to be a major role. (If there is more than one very high score then, the highest of these two scores (relative to their norms banding) is taken to be the major role and all others become included in the minor role category.)

In the full data on this study, the TMS major role and the Belbin roles were compared in various ways to look for role comparisons and similarities in role translation between the two models (for example TMS major roles were first compared to Belbin very high scores and then to Belbin high scores, etc. according to Belbin's norms table). For the sake of brevity in this report; the most illuminating of these comparisons will be reported.

TMS major roles were compared to the two highest Belbin raw scores (regardless of comparison to the Belbin norms table). This seemed to reveal the greatest correspondence between the two models. It is not clear why this should be the case, except to say that reference to the norms tables (and perhaps having to accept a lower score as the major role because of the norms banding) seemed to obscure this finding. A factor that may be of relevance here is that Belbin based his own norms tables bandings on a sample size of only 78 people and this, perhaps, casts doubt on the norms bandings.

This is a preliminary study and the total sample size was 78 (coincidentally!), as a result, the actual numbers of cases falling into some categories is very small this can make the resultant percentages misleading so in all cases the actual number of subjects/roles is given in brackets after the percentage scores. Chi squared test of goodness of fit would be the appropriate statistical test to analyse these results. However, the expected frequencies of each of the cells (in all but one case ) fall below five making the results from such analysis unreliable. In all places, for clarity and consistency, the TMS role is taken as the point of comparison.
Division of the roles within the two models

Table II shows the Belbin team role distribution within the sample. Table III shows the TMS team role distribution within the sample and also expresses this as a percentage of the total sample. These figures are compared to a national survey of the TMS team role preferences of 3,737 managers (Margerison and McCann, 1990). The percentage difference is then calculated to show the extent to which the sample population is representative of the total population of managers, as assessed by the above survey.

By comparing figures in this study to the role distribution encountered by Margerison and McCann (1990), it is possible to comment on the representativeness of the sample (at least with regard to the TMS model, no figures are available for the role distribution of Belbin team roles in the general population). There is some variation from the role distribution that one might have expected. In general terms there are fewer assessor-developers and thruster-organizers than the general data on roles distribution suggests, and a greater number of reporter-advisers and creator-innovators than could have been predicted. A possible explanation of this is that the sample is taken from people either studying at, or working in, higher education rather than in the business world in general.
Summary of main results

The following points are a summary of the main results (see also Tables IV and V):
Reporter-advisers (although there being no obvious matching role) tend to emerge as Belbin plants and resource investigators but not as company workers, monitor evaluators or teamworkers.
Creator-innovators are widely and in an undifferentiated way, dispersed among the Belbin roles.
Explorer-promoters tend to emerge as Belbin resource investigator but not as chairman, or completer-finisher (or to a lesser extent company worker and team-worker).
Assessor-developers (although there being no obvious matching role) tend to emerge as Belbin resource investigators, company workers, shapers and chairman but not as plants or complete finishers (or to a lesser extent teamworkers).
Thruster-organizers seem to span all the Belbin roles but they tend to mainly emerge as Belbin company workers and shapers, the role of plant was poorly represented.
Concluder-producers tend to emerge as Belbin company workers, teamworkers, completer-finishers and monitor-evaluators but not as resource investigators (or, to a lesser extent, plants or chairman).
Controller-inspectors tend to emerge as Belbin company workers, teamworkers and completer-finishers but not as monitor evaluators or plants (and to a lesser extent resource-investigators, shapers or chairman).
Upholder-maintainers - there were only two in this category so it was not possible to draw any meaningful conclusions.
The chairman role is widely dispersed among the TMS roles. Suggesting that what is measured as leadership behaviour by the TMS model is not "captured" by a particular Belbin role (not even the leadership roles of chairperson and shaper).

Discussion and conclusions

Subjects have been tested and the TMS team management profiles and the Belbin team role profiles assessed. The results collected demonstrate the following:
1There is no direct correspondence or translation of roles from one model to another, despite considerable similarity in the behavioural indicators for corresponding roles between the two models.
2There does appear to be an impression of "central gravitation" with the roles of one model tending to "cluster" around like roles in the other model. The Belbin roles, although not corresponding directly to the TMS roles, do tend to gravitate to the appropriate quadrant of the TMS wheel (advising, exploring, organizing, and controlling) and be associated in a broader way with the roles in that quadrant.
3There are two important exceptions to this general observation:

The TMS creator-innovator role does not seem to correspond to any of the Belbin roles (not even the creative roles of plant and resource investigator, these seem to be mainly shared by the TMS reporter-adviser and the explorer-promoter roles). What is therefore measured as the "creative" role in the TMS model is dispersed in the Belbin model. It would appear that if the TMS model really has identified the creative team member then the Belbin model does not tap into these qualities as a method of differentiating a role in its own right. Certainly at the very least, the creator innovator and the plant do not measure creativity in the team in the same way.
In relation to the Belbin chairman role; this role is also widely dispersed when translated into the TMS model. An explanation of this is that the "leadership" role under the TMS system, is not measured along with any of the eight TMS roles but is measured by a separate index (the TMS linking skills index, TMS (UK) Ltd, 1992b). The authors arguing that linking or leadership is a skill in itself and can be performed by any team member in addition to their ordinary team role. In this way the results are exactly as one would expect to find, linking or leadership dispersed among the ordinary Belbin roles, suggesting that in TMS terms any member of the Belbin team could be the leader regardless of major role. This seems to lend support to the TMS view of leadership as linking (a skill performed by different members of the team at different times rather than by primarily one person (the chairperson or possibly shaper)).

It should be remembered that the sample size in this study was only 78. This meant that the actual numbers falling in some of the role type categories was very small (especially roles like the TMS upholder-maintainer). This has restricted the scope of any conclusions that can be drawn from this study. Further research in this area would boost the sample size and lend confidence to drawing more sound generalizations.

The two main findings, that the observed tendency for the most Belbin roles to gravitate towards the relevant quadrant of the TMS wheel and that the "creative" and the "leadership" roles in the two models (as the exception) fail to transfer or correspond in any simple or direct way to any particular roles, are interesting. Such findings merit further research to test the robustness of these phenomena
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Figure 1 The team management wheel
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Table I Comparison of Belbin and TMS models
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Table II The role distribution among the Belbin major team roles
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Table III The role distribution among the TMS major roles of the sample, compared to role distributions suggested by Margerison and McCann (1990) (n = 3,737)
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Table IV Summary of the comparison of Belbin and TMS roles
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Table V The TMS team role (major) for those individuals who have a Belbin chairman major role
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