Management Teams - Why they succeed or fail 

by R M Belbin

1981, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN: 0 7506 2676 3 - Paperback

An understanding of the importance of team-building will always be a major factor in the successful growth and development of businesses. Management Teams is one of the most widely-read, imaginative and influential books in this vital area of management research.  It has been cited by the Financial Times (9/12/1996) as one of the top 50 business books of all time. Based on research undertaken at Henley Management College, UK; the team-roles identified by Dr Belbin have become part of everyday language of organizations all over the world. 

All kinds of teams and team behaviour are covered, including: 

• A study of teams: How it all began
• The Apollo syndrome
• Teams containing similar personalities
• Creativity in the team
• Team Leadership
• Key team-roles
• Unsuccessful teams
• Winning teams
• Ideal team size
• Features of teamsmen
• Designing a team
• Teams in public affairs

Team Roles at Work

by R M Belbin

1993, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN: 0 7506 2675 5 - Paperback

Follow-up book to the best-selling Management Teams develops his ideas based on feedback gained from the users of his work. The nine team roles are explored further, adding value to the original team role concepts. Operational strategies are laid out which provide ideas, techniques and a new range of information and advice which can be used by individuals and the organization itself. 

"A team is not a bunch of people with job titles, but a congregation of individuals, each of who has a role which is understood by other members. Members of a team seek out certain roles and they perform most effectively in the ones that are most natural to them."

Team Roles at Work shows the reader How:

• to manage the self in a team
• to create working partenerships
• to recognise potential for the 'surprise' fit
• to encourage interdependence between members of a team
• the team should fit into the organization
  

Contents

A short history of roles at work, The qualifications mystery, Emergence of a team-role language, The eligibility versus suitability issue, Coherent and incoherent role profiles, Interpersonal chemistry in the workplace, The management of strained relations, A strategy for self-management, The art of building a team, Solo Leader versus Team Leader, The management of succession, The future shape of organization.

The Coming Shape of Organization

by R M Belbin

1996, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN: 0 7506 3950 4 - Paperback

In The Coming Shape of Organization Meredith Belbin takes the reader on a different and fascinating journey. His insightful analysis takes us from the faults of typical hierarchies to the new world of restructured, flatter organizations where new sets of problems are emerging.

In the search for alternative systems, Dr Belbin outlines ways in which continuous deployment and career development can result in more effective use of people's talents. He describes the world of higher social insects where evolution has generated a common set of principles governing organizations at their most advanced. He then suggests that these integrated strengths could be combined effectively with the strategic abilities of humans.  A model in the form of the helix (colour plate), is foreseen in which individuals and teams move forward on the basis of excellence rather than function.   Here information technology can assist in the evolution of human organizations to enable them to become both more complex and more viable in the future.

Contents:

Prologue, Acknowledgements
In search of the future, The faltering organization, The problem with Mr Big, Lessons from a diminutive masterclass, Concurrent versus sequential decision-making, Replacing traditional hierarchy, An alternative way of arranging work, Teams communicate with teams, Employing the highly talented, The culture and the organization, Strategic leadership comes of age, The organization of public affairs, Forces making for change, The evolution of common shape.

Changing the Way We Work

by R M Belbin

1997, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN: 0 7506 4288 2 - Paperback 

How many problems at work arise from the way in which jobs are set up? Either people do not have a clear understanding of their duties and responsibilities, spending time and energy disentangling them from those of their co-workers or they are hemmed in by job specifications that allow no room for movement and initiative. An alternative system is needed, where jobs can grow and develop: where communication about the work can flow up as easily as down. Dr Belbin describes the development of a radical approach to setting-up a job incorporating colour-coding (Work Roles) and information technology (WorkSet) derived from experiments undertaken in three countries. WorkSet   is a new means of delivering greater efficiency in a dynamic process that equally involves managers and jobholders. 

Contents:

Preface, The colours of Work Roles
Orders & disorders, The true nature of a modern job, Reclassifying work; tasks versus responsibilities, "So what's the job?", Overcoming initial problems, Job casting and job briefing, Improving communications, Quantifying the way we work, Managing the feedback, Creating a new culture, Fostering team empowerment, From competence to excellence, Team roles and colour codes, Managers and leaders revisited, A way forward
Appendix 1: A glossaary of terms
Appendix 2: WorkSet - audit of existing practices in job setting
(A questionnaire designed to identify current methods and practices in setting up jobs - to be completed by jobholders).

Beyond The Team

by R M Belbin

2000, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN: 0 7506 4641 1 - Hardback

Beyond the Team draws on Meredith Belbin's extensive work with organizations worldwide to give further insights into the workings of teams and groups. The modern job needs to be actively interpreted and constantly revised in terms of the balance between a team role, a work role and a professional role. The language systems of these roles are developed and discussed as they recur in both theory and practice. The socially complex nature of communication in the workplace offers parallels with the intricacies of the social insect world. Information technology is extending human networking with the potential of creating a form of organization closer to what can be achieved in superorganisms.

Beyond the Team shows how eventually, the mature team can learn to distribute work between its own members by giving a comprehensive understanding of how to manage both team roles and work roles

Contents:

The impact of team roles, Rise and fall of the team, Distinguishing teams from groups, Understanding work roles, What pink work reveals, A framework for meetings, What ever happened to empowerment?, Rewards and renumeration, Adding value to the job, Feedback and networking, Decision-making and the mature organization, From groups to supergroups, Some steps in the right direction, Snakes and Ladders.

Managing without Power
Gender relationships in the story of Human Evolution

by R M Belbin

2001, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN: 0 7506 5192 X - Hardback

Meredith Belbin, best known for his work on teams, now considers the way in which continuing evolution has produced distinct patterns of behaviour for men and women.

Examination of the key stages in the history of homo sapiens reveals

• how very early human society was regulated not through power but by organic balance, so allowing women to play a vital role in the community
• why women lost their hold over men as more populous and structured societies became dominated by aggressive warriors seeking territorial expansion
• how natural selection within competing empires favoured the survival of able professionals and compliant slaves, so diversifying the behavioural roles to which humans were genetically disposed
• how, in the present era, power has lost its biological utility as human evolution slowed, and technological evolution favoured the emancipation of women with its premium on communication skills
• how in this changing scenario, as women have recovered their status and influence, social progress has brought in its wake a new set of cross-gender problems.

Penetrating, original and provocative this book offers suggestions on how men and women can come to terms with their genetic heritage, so restoring much needed balance to business organisations and to the community at large.

Contents:

Preface, Introduction
Part I - The Age of Respect
Preview, In the Beginning, Two Echoes of the Past, The Great Migration Part II - Part II - The Age of Power
Preview, The Fall of Eve, Advance of The Conqueror, Problems for Rulers, The Inefficiencies of Power
Part III - The Age of Accommodation
Preview, A Change of Focus, The Resurrection of Eve, The Genetic Legacy, Gender Relationships, A Changing Culture, A Question of Leadership, Two Modes of Management
Appendix The Relationship between Genetic Archetypes and Team Roles