Management Teams

Rating:
Summary: Moderately Pleased
Review: R. Meredith Belbin's text, Management Teams: Why the succeed or fail is quite applicable to my studies in small group communication. However, I would not choose to read it again outside of this context. I did not enjoy the writing style or the setup of the book, yet it contained helpful information for the assignment I needed it for. The review on the back cover perfectly describes the intended audience of the text, with a line drawn from PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT that says "It should be read by all who have responsibility and authority for guiding organizations in their selection of management teams." For the purpose of writing a speech with the intended audience being a startup corporation looking to build new management teams, this text was very useful and informative. Beyond this, I did not learn much that I had not already learned, or could have surmised on my own. Without having the time to read the text from cover to cover in order from beginning to end, it was difficult to follow some of the associations drawn to other material. There were a few concepts that I did not fully understand even after reading the information, and chose to leave these things out of my speech, such as the Apollo Syndrome. Given that this text is probably not meant for use in coursework, or at least not so much in the area of communication, it was quite applicable to the study of team communication. The focus of the text is more geared toward management research, which seems to be common-sensical at times, yet I think needs to be put into print to establish general guidelines for all to follow. Overall, I would probably recommend this text to someone completing the same or similar assignment or to someone looking to get ahead in a management team. This is definitely a very directed reading and intended for a very tailored audience.

Rating:
Summary: Using Belbins team roles
Review: This book is a must for all trainers in the HR arena. It explains the background to Belbins research, it explains the roles in detail and goes on to explain what the roles mean and how to use them to optimise team performance.

The language Belbin uses is friendly and easy to read and so the book is ideal material for trainers and students alike.

A classic book which should be included on every HR Trainers bookshelf.

Rating:
Summary: An Essential Book for Building Collaborative Teams
Review: This extraordinary book was written by Dr. Belbin nearly 20 years ago and remains in a class by itself in providing a useful theory for building and operating effective decision-making teams. Nowhere else will the reader find a set of principles that are so soundly based on direct evaluation of competing teams, explain so much of effective and ineffective team behavior which otherwise confounds explanation, and which is so beautifully and succinctly written.

While Belbin's title suggests this book is simply about business management, the content of the book is of much wider applicability. This book is a valuable, perhaps indispensable, source for anyone involved in collaborative endeavors. The book would be useful if it merely answered the question "Why do collaborative (creative, decision-making) teams succeed or fail?" Belbin goes much further than that. He tells us how to proactively build teams that are predisposed to succeed and, equally importantly, how to adopt strategies that will lead to success on the part of teams not so fortunately constructed.

I have found this book very useful in building, and teaching the building, of software product development teams, and heartily recommend it for that purpose.