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Canada Day is Canada’s national holiday and it is celebrated on July 1^st. It is a federal holiday celebrated by all provincial governments and most businesses across Canada.

It celebrates the creation of the Dominion of Canada which came into effect on July 1, 1867, uniting three British territories, the Province of Canada (southern Ontario and southern Quebec), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a federation. The holiday was formally established in 1879 and was originally called Dominion Day, but the name was changed to Canada Day on October 27, 1982. (Wikipedia) 

What is our Canada?

When it comes to Canada many thoughts go through my mind. Growing up in northern Ontario, I have wonderful memories of living in a small town with the Canadian wilderness just outside my door. I didn’t have “helicopter parents,” (no one did), and my summers were spent outdoors playing with my siblings and neighbours. One time I went on a picnic with my peanut butter sandwich packed in a brown paper bag. I trekked through the bush (probably not far from home, but it seemed like an adventure). And once on top of a rock outcrop, I ate my peanut butter sandwich, and laid back on the moss covered Canadian Shield. I looked out over a carpet of evergreen tree tops, blue sky, and fluffy white clouds.  The air was fresh and thick with the smell of pine and the sun warmed my heart. It’s a memory that has stayed with me and it says a lot about what Canada is to me.

We live in a beautiful country and, in addition to pine trees and the Canadian shield, my Canada is:

• Please and thank you
• The splendour of four seasons
• Clean abundant water
• The Canadian Maple Leaf
• Tim Horton’s
• The mosiac of diversity
• Opportunities galore
• Peace

What is your Canada?

Happy Birthday Canada.   Joanne

I hope you’ve enjoyed our series about the secret to team success. 

So why is having a well  balanced team so important?

Hockey coaches do not draft centre forwards to the exclusion of all other positions. Instead, a successful hockey team incorporates a variety of roles, forward, defence, and a goalie, with players using their individual strengths and fulfilling different purposes. But the team has one common outcome: winning the game. Belbin discovered nine specific team roles that contribute to successful teams.  Do you have the nine roles evident in your team?

1. Plant
2. Resource Investigator
3. Co-ordinator
4. Shaper
5. Monitor Evaluator
6. Teamworker
7. Implementer
8. Complete Finisher
9. Specialist

The benefits of applying the secret to team success within your organization are many:

• Brings a proven technology to creating an effective working team
• Defines the roles and responsibilities of team members
• Ensures people fulfill the roles that are their preferred or strongest role
• Removes obstacles that prevents a team from succeeding
• Decreases conflict and builds harmony as there is a balance in team roles
• Improves communication
• Identifies a teams strengths and weaknesses
• Helps with the recruiting process of filling the gaps in your team
• Ensure members understand the unique contribution (role) of each team member
• Helps improve customer satisfaction as happy teams create extraordinary customer service
• Improves morale, productivity, and profit

Are you interested in putting Dr. Meredith Belbin’s proven and validated research to work at your organization. Book your team assessments and training by calling today.  In this competitive market you need your teams working at full potential for success.

Joanne (Acredited Belbin team roles assessor, facilitator, and coach)

To view other blogs in this series click here: 

What LOST can teach us about Belbin Team Roles,  

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 1/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 2/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 3/4

During this series of blogs hopefully you’ve learned a bit about Belbin team roles.  Dr. Belbin discovered the secret to team success was a balanced team with nine specific team roles needed to result in team success.

Remember that every team member has “preferred roles” (roles that they naturally are well suited to), “manageable roles” (roles that they can fulfill in a pinch, but not for the really long term), and “least preferred roles” (which they should avoid doing or delegate)!  You don’t have to have nine members as some member fulfill more than one role!

In the television series LOST, Jack’s preferred roles were the Co-ordinator and the Monitor Evaluator. During part of the series, he let these roles take a back seat, and I think not too many of the viewers liked the shift! He wasn’t really the team cheer leader or Teamworker - like Hurley, nor did he fulfill the role of a Shaper (Sawyer / Sayid). He wasn’t a ideas guy like the “live” John Lock, who ran on ideas and intiution – the Plant. He may have taken on these roles for a short while, but he would not do well if he had to keep fulfilling these roles because they were not his preferred roles.

Can you see where your strengths might be?  How about your fellow team members?  If you want to learn more about the nine team roles, and what gaps might be causing your team to be less successful then they can be, give us a call for a consultation and team roles assessment for your team!

Joanne  (Your accreditted Belbin team roles assessor, facilitator, and coach)

To view other blogs in this series click here: 

What LOST can teach us about Belbin Team Roles,  

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 1/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 2/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 4/4

Last week you learned that Dr. Meredith Belbin conducted a joint research project between Cambridge University and Henley College. Over nine years, Belbin studied what made some teams successful and others not so successful in business simulation games run during executive seminars.

He found that highly intelligent teams didn’t mean success, nor did teams made up of like minded personalities result in success.   Dr. Belbin moved on to studying teams in-depth to find out what balance created the most successful teams.

Belbin analysed the make up of each team and found nine team roles were the secret of team success. If you’re a fan of the television series LOST, the associated character has been listed in (brackets)!:

• The first important attribute to emerge was “creativity.” Without ideas, a team would flounder so teams needed Plants and Resource Investigators. (John Lock)
• He then found that two different types of people were necessary to capture and manage the ideas. Coordinators and Monitor Evaluators.  (Jack Shephard)
• Next, he discovered that an Implementer was essential in order to get things done. (Sun Kwon)
• The Shaper was necessary to “crack the whip” and get the team focused on moving ahead. (Sawyer)
• The Teamworker was discovered to be important for ensuring the team maintained their spirits and group harmony.  (Hurley)
• The two final roles to be noted were the Completer Finisher (Jin Kwon), the details person, and the Specialist (Sayid), providing knowledge and single-focused expertise.

Dr. Belbin didn’t mean that each team must have nine individuals present in order to be successful. Most individuals have “preferred” roles, some “manageable” roles, and some “least preferred” roles. Therefore, you don’t need nine members to be successful.

Dr. Belbin’s research was validated and his research gives you the ability to control your team’s success.

If you are interested in learning more about the secrets of team success discovered by Dr. Meredith Belbin, please contact us.

Belbin Accredited Team Roles Assessor, Facilitator and Coach, Joanne

P.S. The missing team role from “What LOST can teach us about Belbin team roles” was the “Monitor Evaluator” role fulfilled by Jack. He used logic and reason to evaluate various options!

To view other blogs in this series click here: 

What LOST can teach us about Belbin Team Roles,  

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 1/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 3/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 4/4

Teams can work like a well-oiled machine running smoothly, efficiently and successfully when the members work well together. However, if a team is not set up with a good balance of knowledge, skills and attributes, disaster is just around the corner. For example:

The CEO of a software company wants new software solutions developed to meet the needs of the company’s target market. He assigns Ted, an long time programmer and the manager of the software development department, as the team leader. Ted chooses Dave, Samantha, and Michael as members of the team. He picked Dave because he’s an expert at programming, Samantha because she is a whiz at marketing and understanding the needs of the customers, and Michael because he’s very creative and has worked on several software design projects in the past.

The first few weeks go by and everything seems okay. Lively discussions, brain storming, and goal setting have taken place. But then the team seems to get stuck. Ted, Dave, and Michael all have ideas, but they can’t seem to come to a decision. Samantha sees the team going no where with more and more options being thrown into the mix and nothing moving forward.

Does this happen to your team? You pick intelligent team members and then all of a sudden the project isn’t moving forward. You find you don’t have the right information, and you don’t have the skills, knowledge, and attributes to make a successful team. Can you imagine if the LOST team I blogged about last week was made up of a team filled with Hurleys (team workers) or Sawyers (shapers). The team wouldn’t have worked so well. This is where understanding Belbin team roles will help.

Dr. Meredith Belbin conducted a joint research project between Cambridge University and Henley College. Over nine years, Belbin studied what made some teams successful and others not so successful in business simulation games run during executive seminars.

He found that:

1. Highly intelligent teams did not result in highly successful teams. In fact the highly intelligent teams ended up last or very close to it. They were very competitive versus collaborative, and prone to conflicts and unresolved issues.
2. When individuals of like-personalities were put together in a team, they tended to be well suited to certain tasks and not so great at other tasks leaving gaps in the team. If you are a LOST fan, think about a team filled with Hurleys.
3. The study then moved on with Belbin trying to achieve balance in the teams. He started observing teams in-depth.

Stay tuned, for the next blog in our series.  You’ll find out more about building successful teams and more about the nine Belbin team roles that are necessary for success!

  Joanne   (Accredited Belbin team roles assessor, facilitator, and coach)

To view other blogs in this series click here: 

What LOST can teach us about Belbin Team Roles,  

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 2/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 3/4

Discover Belbin’s Secret to Team Success 4/4