Now that the elections are over, it is amazing to see the peacefulness which has been installed in our corridors…schedules are getting lighter that they already fit in one page, people are already emancipating about going on holidays, many have already flown away…therefore I decided to go for a training – teamwork.

Two days of training – is it enough to change your view on the team you have been working with every day in the last year? Better communication in teams – what could this imply? Why should anybody ‘waste’ two days on it? These are probably everybody’s first questions when opening the invitation for such a training, and to be perfectly honest, that was my own reaction in the very beginning as well. However, by the end of the training, I ought to think I had made a very good choice.

Teamwork is seen as crucial for the success of any project, this having been perfectly exemplified for us during our election campaign. During my training, I have encountered some team roles each of us has within the team we work in, very well described and divided according to our contributions, attitudes and abilities. 

I learned it at school

We have proved ourselves to be a solid team, hardworking and focused on our main goals. Throughout the election campaign, our unit was divided in smaller teams according to our projects – spreading team, social media team, etc. But did everything go perfectly smooth within the team? Have we succeeded in fully understanding our team and its members in every moment?  Despite our good results and great work, I cannot help wondering how it would have been provided we took these roles into consideration.

In details…

Plants, shapers, coordinators, finishers are just a few among the roles that can shape a team…

I shall present a part of the roles in a few lines, leaving the rest for you to discover here.

In the beginning, allow me to explain the term plant comes from French and refers to innovateur, just to avoid any confusion. A plant is creative and gives brilliant ideas, communicates easily but has considerable troubles in accepting criticism. Having this all said, who is a plant among our team?

Shaper is the one that challenges the team and seeks for the best solutions to the problems – he wants to shake things up and keep on eye on each alternative.

The resource investigator is the one in charge with the “spirit’, extremely enthusiastic and adaptive in building contacts. On the other hand, he easily loses interest once the first enthusiasm has passed away.

The finisher is the anxious one that searches for mistakes and forgotten parts, and although very stressed and worried, delivers projects on time.

Coordinators are very good goals settlers, in charge with the ‘big picture’. They easily recognize the others’ abilities and delegate tasks, but can tend to be very manipulative in the same time.

According to Dr Belbin, who introduced this concept, if a team is composed on the basis of these carefully selected roles, the needs of the project and thus, the team in itself can be best achieved. Have we ever tried to define our own selves and analyse ourselves as individuals and members of one team? It proved useful so many times, so why not applying it now as well? In what concerns me, if I were to choose a ‘perfect’ team, I already know which one would have which role…and the results are therefore…easy to anticipate.