The company executives asked 3Circle Partners to help them launch a major “Reimagination” project. They had identified 30 key issues the company needed to address, and called on 3CP’s Team Role analysis to help them create a team around each issue with the right balance of team roles to favor innovation. The teams also participated in Team Accelerator™ workshops to give them the basic skills for working most effectively together, based on their strengths and weaknesses.

This new team-based structure was used to implement a number of major innovations in the newspaper, including a revamping of the physical layout of the editorial/on-line offices to foster more effective collaboration.

Overall, the company reports good results from almost all teams, and outstanding results from several of them. They also discovered several true leaders in the organization (those who could harness the full power of their teams). The Globe and Mail is now viewed as one of the most successful newspapers in North America.

About that time, the key VP went through Team Accelerator™ workshop, and realized the 3Circle Partner approach would help break the log jam. All members of two key teams also went through Team Accelerator workshops and learned collaboration skills. One key insight was that both teams were imbalanced in their Team Roles, both having an overabundance of some roles and gaps in other roles (they were imbalanced in different ways). Because of these imbalances, neither team could be very productive on its own, and the differences in working styles practically guaranteed conflict between the groups.

Yet the two groups realized that if they combined their strengths, together they could create a well-balanced team. The groups worked through their differences, developed a better understanding of the each other’s dynamics, and develop ground rules that would help them communicate in ways that would avoid future problems.

Xerox credits this work with speeding up the release-to-market of their new ColorQube printer. The improved collaboration also resulted in significantly fewer post-launch problems compared to other product launches.

He attended a public workshop given by 3Circle Partners, which inspired him to have Belbin Team Role analyses done for all staff. He also arranged to have them all participate in a Team Accelerator™ workshop as a team. That session focused on understanding gaps and overlaps in roles.

The turning point came when the CEO realized he had been trying to perform the tasks associated with the kind of Coordinator tasks that are required of someone who needs to keep everyone on a team moving forward. Unfortunately, he had no natural interest in that kind of work. What energized him more was making contacts and coming up with new ideas (jobs linked to the Resource Investigator and Shaper roles, respectively).

The CEO was at a critical juncture: if he were to play to his strengths, he could not do a good job of being a CEO. So he “fired” himself, and step aside to become a Managing Partner, where the tasks required of him played directly into his Resource Investigator and Shaper talents.

The changes didn’t stop there, however. The now-former CEO convinced his corporate management to allow him to create a new COO position, and deliberately filled that job with a person who had the Coordinator skills he lacked. The company also formed 3-person “balanced” teams (in terms of Belbin team roles), each which was assigned accounts.

Three years after these actions, the revenues for this division had nearly doubled, and it had gone from the worst-performing regional division in the company to the best.

When learning about the nine team roles, Sam could see that he spent much of his time doing the kinds of tasks associated with the Shaper role: people who make things happen no matter the obstacles, who thrive with challenge and pressure.

But the profile report he received showed that both he and others around him saw even stronger talents, those embodied in the role of Resource Investigator: an extroverted person who naturally keeps and maintains a lot of contacts, and uses those contacts to find resources the team needs.

A small portion of the Team Role report is shown in the figure. The numbers reflect how highly both Sam (“Self”) and a number of “observers” (coworkers) felt about his ability to perform the jobs associated with various roles. It surprised Sam that even he rated himself higher in the RI (resource investigator) skills; but what struck him most was just how much higher the observers rated him in that category.

For Sam, this mismatch between the type of work he spent his time doing (Shaper) and the type of work he was even better at (Resource Investigator) had held him back in his career. By focusing more on performing the Resource Investigator role, Sam became even more effective in his job. And within three years his career success allowed him to become a partner in a Big 3 consulting firm.

As you may be aware, the R&D team at Belbin are currently reviewing all the Belbin questionnaires and reports. We have listened to feedback since the last major overhaul and we hope we have incorporated the majority of suggestions!

As you can imagine, this is a lengthy process, as every change needs to be ‘normed’, and the nuances of the English language can prove tricky!

We are now at a point where we have a new Self-Perception Inventory (SPI). This is where you come in: we need enough responses to ensure that we have made the right changes, and that we have a large enough database from which to take a norm from. We need to obtain about 5000 responses.

If you would like to take part in our research and have a spare 15 minutes, please click here. We would like you to complete the SPI and collect 4 observers. We can’t offer you a full Belbin report in return, but we can send you our latest ‘Manager’s report’ which we are hoping will prove to be a valuable new Belbin report.

This manager’s report is under development, and it is currently produced using a very small norm base, so please bear this in mind when digesting the results. Having said this we hope you will find it useful and, of course, any feedback will be appreciated!

We do need people from a cross-section of organizations and jobs, so please forward this page on to anyone who you think would be intrigued and willing to help.

We are launching our new relationship with a public offering of our Team Accelerator™ workshop, a cornerstone of the Team Acceleration™ process currently being used in organizations across the globe.

Aqua Porter has been with Xerox since 1984 and has held a variety of positions including Engineering, Marketing, Product Development, Purchasing, and Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management. She is a senior manager with extensive experience in all phases of product development and delivery, and is adept in building strong teams who deliver exceptional business results.

Xerox has made a major commitment to using Lean Six Sigma tools and methodology – both to drive improvements in our own business and to deliver measurable results for customers. Their unique, disciplined approach involves analyzing business processes and identifying ways to eliminate both errors and unnecessary steps. Xerox Global Services looks for ways to deliver improvements quickly and focus on leveraging your existing IT investments. From streamlining paper-choked workflows to automating labor-intensive functions, the results can be remarkable.

(This article originally appeared on the Business901 blog)

NOW IN THE FINAL STRETCH…

In early September we initiated our Belbin Team Roles profiling as an interactive personality quiz to determine how you see our leaders as team players. We now have three sets of public data done at different times since the election was called. Our most recent one was done on public input after the leadership debates.

Our latest set of results, shown at the top of each of the party leader’s individual pages in this section of The Globe website, indicates that for Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion trends established prior to the debates have accelerated. For Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton, and Elizabeth May the solid identity they have had from the start of this election process has remained constant.

The biggest change was in Stephen Harper’s overall profile. The strength of his Shaper role diminished considerably in his post debate profile. This “softening” may have created ambiguity around his “branding” in Belbin terms. For all the other leaders, their one or two top roles have become more and more distinct each time we have run a profile. For Stéphane Dion in particular this has been the case. A quick glance at Dion’s and Harper’s latest profile is quite illuminating. There is a clear distinction in Dion’s profile between his strong and weak roles. In Harper’s there is an evenness in his roles reminiscent of Dion’s profile at the beginning of his campaign when his image was unclear.

The images the leaders have been cultivating over the last month will play a role in the vote on Tuesday. It will be interesting to reflect, with hindsight, after the election, as to whether the team roles we have identified in our leaders and how they have projected their strengths has influenced voting patterns.

(This piece originally appeared as part of a post on the Improving Teams blog)

The U.S. Economic Crisis and the Debate

The reactions of Obama and McCain in the current financial crisis and their performances in the presidential debate are completely aligned with our predictions based on their team profiles.

There has been a “loose cannon” aura about McCain’s handling of both the current U.S. economic crisis and how he chose his running mate, Sarah Palin, consistent with someone who is a strong Shaper and Resource Investigator. Obama, in contrast, has been seen as taking more well-thought-out actions and being more interested in working cooperatively, characteristic of a Plant with strong Coordinator and Teamworker contributions. Read more…

Judging the leaders using the Belbin method

The intensive research that Meredith Belbin conducted in the latter half of the 20th Century into what it takes to have a winning team provides a unique framework to evaluate the style, strengths and possible weaknesses of the two contenders for the U.S. presidency in November. Belbins’s research revealed that it is possible to predict the style of management that each candidate is likely to bring to the job of president.

The Globe and Mail with assistance from 3 Circle Partners has analyzed input from expert panels using Belbin Team Role Profiles to determine what style of leadership we can expect from Barack Obama and John McCain.

The Globe and Mail is making the Belbin process open so you can participate and see how they will measure up.

(This piece originally appeared as part of a post on the Improving Teams blog)