What is Inclusive Groupwork?
Behavioral diversity exists in all teams. The inclusive group work toolbox allows you to ‘utilize’ individual differences by creating self-awareness regarding your strengths and weaknesses. The message is that there is room for everyone on the team: all positive contributions are welcome.
Belbin’s research-based methodology helps individuals to discover, articulate and refine their behavioral strengths. Belbin has identified nine different clusters of behavior – contributions that people can make to facilitate team progress. These are called the Belbin Team Roles. Each role has strengths and associated weaknesses.
It is recommended to start with the first step of this toolbox in the beginning of the new academic session. Step two may follow a few weeks later when students know each other slightly better.
Step 1. Generate the Belbin Individual Report - Identifying our behavioral styles is the first step towards increasing self-understanding and building more effective working practices.
Step 2. Generate the Belbin Team Report - We may understand our contributions, but this is of limited use if we don't share that information with others. To build and cultivate great teams, team members need to understand, recognize, and maximize the behavioral strengths of others, whilst managing and containing the associated weaknesses.
This video explains the Belbin Team Roles.
See sample individual report and team report by downloading the pdf's at the end of this webpage.
- Enhanced Self-Awareness - Every individual needs to understand their key strengths and how to articulate how they prefer to work. The work to become a better team member starts with every individual. This tool helps in raising self-awareness and psychological safety. It enhances self-awareness by helping you to reflect on your behaviors in different scenarios.
- Improved Personal and Team Effectiveness – The tool helps in understanding that we all have different strengths and weaknesses. By identifying them and putting this information to good use, the team can use the strengths to its advantage and compensate for any weaknesses.