For a company to function optimally, teamwork is essential. So how do you get your team to work together better? The answer is Team-Fit™.
What is Team-Fit™?
Team-Fit™ is an analysis, based on earlier work by Dr. Meredith Belbin. It will:
- help to clarify organisational roles
- identify people’s most effective and secondary roles
- assess the balance of the existing or proposed organisational structure
- help to identify any roles that are missing, over-represented or particularly appropriate to different aspects of the organisation’s activities.
In other words, although companies recruit individuals, these individuals have to fit into a team to do their work. Team-Fit™ helps you to figure out and take stock of the skills and roles in your team. You can then determine how to better make use of their skills to make the team work even better together.
It can help you determine which individuals are suited for which roles, who would work well together or who would most efficiently complete certain types of projects. In addition, if individuals are doing things they enjoy and are good at, the quality of their work and pride in the company will improve.
What influence do personalities have on teamwork?
We’ve mentioned that the individual’s characteristics and skills are important, so you may be wondering what impact it has on teamwork. In essence, not everyone is good at everything. When you put together a balanced team, they can inspire each other to do even better work. They will also motivate and encourage each other to overcome obstacles.
There are many types of personalities and it is a good leader’s job to identify them and put them to the best use. For instance, you get people that are great at communicating and would be the ideal presenter for a project. But they aren’t necessarily brilliant at the concept phase or the paperwork part of the project. This means you need to add someone who is innovative and flexible and is good at brainstorming and coming up with new ideas. You will also need someone who is good at administration and organisation and will keep everyone on track to complete the project within the time frame and budget.
If a team has too many people who are great at selling a product, but not enough helping to complete the project, you won’t make the deadline. Conversely, if you have a great product development team, but they don’t know how to sell the product, the project will flop.
The balance of personalities can make teamwork a dream or a nightmare. It can result in outstanding sales and performance, or a stack of complaints. That’s why investing in an analysis like Team-Fit™ is so important.
Personalities and their fit in the team
According to the Team-Fit™ analysis, there are seven different personality types:
Resource investigator
This personality brings information to the team, usually from external sources. They usually have lots of contacts, are friendly, and keep the team on their toes. But they can turn lazy if they are not working under pressure. These personalities tend to be communicative, sociable, enthusiastic, versatile and innovative.
Chair
The social leader of the group is most skilled in identifying what each member’s strengths are and guiding the team to success. They are usually commanding and decisive, but not domineering. This calm, self-confident personality is a good listener, talent spotter, good speaker and positive thinker. In addition, they can be trusting by nature, with a strong moral commitment, unflappable in the face of controversy and are naturally enthusiastic.
Shaper
The energising personality that drives the implementation of ideas and gets projects moving. This dynamic individual makes a good team leader in growing organisations or active project groups but can be abrasive to people outside the group. They can be impulsive, with a strong need for achievement, tough-minded, sociable, fearless and unflinching in face-to-face contact.
Evaluator
This personality tends to critically appraise proposals, monitor progress and prevent the group from making mistakes. They like time to process and analyse things with their clever and dispassionate minds, making them seem cold and uncommitted. But once they do make a decision or recommend something, they are rarely wrong.
Team worker
The personality that brings the team together and keeps the peace. These unofficial team leaders provide an informal network of communication and support, both during and outside meetings. They often help to avoid or prevent disputes. These personalities tend to be sympathetic, understanding, sensitive and trusting, with a strong interest in human interaction and communication.
Organiser
The team member that translates plans into manageable tasks. This personality is disciplined, practical, conscientious and methodical. They are usually the hard-working, systematic member of the group that is great at keeping things on track, even when it’s a task they don’t particularly like. Due to their nature, they need to guard against inflexibility and being unimaginative.
Finisher
A perfectionist determined to meet deadlines, this personality often worries about what can potentially go wrong. This leads them to create a permanent sense of urgency among the group which drives them to meet the deadline. They tend to be painstaking, conscientious, relentless and pay attention to detail. Although they appear unflappable and have high self-control, they can be prone to internal anxiety.
Why Team-Fit™ is important
To sum it all up, determining your team’s fit will have several benefits:
- Better job fit
If employees are doing tasks that fit their skills, they will be happier and able to better apply what they are good at. This will also ensure that the right person is doing the right task and eliminate job overlaps and unnecessary meetings and cross-checks. This may even affect your turnover. A happy worker is less likely to quit their job or accept another job opportunity. And better continuity will not only cut down on time wasted on hand-overs and training but customers and clients will also get to know and trust the employees on a long-term basis.
- Better teamwork
This may sound kind of obvious since we’ve discussed it throughout the article, but it remains important. If your team works well together, as a cohesive unit, they will get tasks done faster, in a better manner with much less fuss. You will have fewer complaints and misunderstandings and more time to reward your team for good work.
- Better use of skills
If you know how to best use an individual’s skills within the team, they’ll be able to better develop their skills as they gain more experience. The friendly competition between team members will also help them improve and learn.
- Improvement of weaknesses
As team members work together, they may learn from someone whose strength is their weakness. This way team members can improve their weaknesses and eventually even turn it into a strength. It is important to encourage team members to learn from each other and be willing to teach each other.
Considering new additions to the team
While we’ve mostly talked about Team-Fit™ as it applies to your current employees, it is also important to apply it to potential candidates. Once you know which roles, skills or personalities you’re still missing in your team, it will make looking for a suitable candidate much easier.
You can then determine if the candidate will fit into your team during the interview process. This will decrease the chances of you investing in a new employee only to lose them a few months later as they were unable to fit into the team and unhappy with their job. You can find out more about Team-Fit™ and how Simpson Dean can assist you with it by contacting us here. Check out our other blog articles for more information on remote working, how to better equip your employees and other recruitment tips.