E/LMS 100: The Nine Team Roles

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Plant

These people are highly intelligent, original thinkers; their great skill is in generating new ideas and solving difficult problems. The Plant is the ideas person. The Plant thinks in a radical, imaginative, and lateral way. However, Plants are not the best people to put their own ideas into practice – they lose interest quickly.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Individualistic Serious-minded Unorthodox	Genius Imagination Intellect Knowledge Solves difficult problems	Up in the clouds Inclined to disregard practical details or protocol.

Resource Investigator

Resource Investigators are also creative, but they don’t generate new ideas in the way that Plants do. They are more likely to take a raw idea from someone else and develop it. They are relaxed, extrovert and inquisitive, and usually extremely popular. They are skilled diplomats and negotiators and can think on their feet. Their positive and optimistic nature can be a valuable influence on the team’s morale and motivation.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Extrovert Enthusiastic Curious Communicative	Capacity for contacting useful people and exploring new opportunities. Ability to respond to challenges.	Liable to lose interest once the initial fascination has passed. Over-optimistic Uncritical

Coordinator

The Coordinator is highly-disciplined and controlled and has a natural inclination to focus on objectives. This helps to keep the team working towards a shared goal. The Coordinator is the great unifying force within the team and is usually highly respected by the other members of it.

Coordinators are confident and usually have a natural air of authority; they are good delegators, good communicators and are adept at spotting individual talent and harnessing it for the benefit of the whole team. Coordinators are wise and emotionally mature.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Calm Self-confident Controlled	A capacity for treating and welcoming all potential contributors on their merits and without prejudice. A clear sense of objectives.	Not of exceptional intellect or creative ability.

Shaper

These personality types are dynamic and full of nervous energy. They are outgoing, impulsive, and impatient, and often edgy. They love to set challenges and to be challenged, and they are very achievement-orientated. They want results and will push others to achieve them; this can lead to rows, but these may not last long and grudges will be quickly forgotten. The Shaper’s main function is to help shape the team’s efforts.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Highly-strung Outgoing Dynamic	Drive a readiness to challenge inertia, ineffectiveness, complacency, or self-deception.	Prone to provocation, irritation, and impatience. Tendency to hurt people’s feelings.

Monitor Evaluator

These people are intelligent, stable, and introverted. They can be rather dry and unexciting personalities – even cold. Their strength lies not in generating ideas but in clear, dispassionate analysis of other people’s ideas. They weigh up all the pros and cons, are shrewd judges and seldom make bad decisions. It is most often the Monitor Evaluator who prevents the team from committing itself to a misguided course of action. They are objective thinkers and take their time to reach conclusions. They are unemotional and unenthusiastic.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Sober Unemotional Prudent	Good judgement Discretion Hard-headedness	Lack of enthusiasm or the ability to motivate other people. Can be uninspired and uninspiring - a bit of a cold fish.

Team Worker

The Team Worker is supportive, sensitive, and social and recognises the emotional undercurrents in the team most clearly. These people make good listeners and diplomats, loyal to the team, popular and mild natured. Their instinctive reaction to new ideas is to build on them rather than pick holes in them. The presence of the Team Worker minimises interpersonal problems in the team.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Socially orientated Rather mild Sensitive	Ability to respond to people and situations and promote team spirit A good diplomat.	Indecisive in moments of crisis. Adapters rather than changers.

Implementer

This is the person who has the organisational skills, common sense, and self-discipline to turn ideas and decisions into defined and manageable tasks. Implementers convert general plans into plans of action. They are hardworking and systematic, as well as being loyal and without any strong self-interest. One of the Implementer’s greatest assets is that they are happy to do any task that needs to be done, regardless of whether they personally enjoy doing it or not.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Conservative Dutiful Predictable	Organising ability Practical common sense Hard working Self-discipline	Lack of flexibility Slow to respond to new ideas Resistant to change

Completer Finisher

Completers are anxious and introvert by nature, although they may come across as calm. They worry about what might go wrong, so they are not happy until they have thoroughly checked every detail. As a result, they are painstakingly conscientious – they make excellent proof-readers.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Painstaking Orderly Conscientious Anxious	A capacity to deliver what they promise Perfectionism	Inclined to worry unduly Reluctant to delegate Can be a nit-picker

Specialist

Specialists are dedicated to acquiring highly-specialised skills or knowledge. Their real interest is in their own subject area, which they advance enthusiastically and about which they adopt a highly professional attitude. Specialists possess the drive, dedication, and single-mindedness to become thoroughgoing experts in a narrow field.

Summary	Positive Qualities	Allowable Weaknesses
Single-minded Self-starting Dedicated	Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply.	Contributes only on a narrow front Tends not to see the big picture.

Finding the Right Mix

The following key factors strongly influence the successfulness of the team:

The person in the chair – someone senior on the team whose profile closely matches that of the Coordinator and who can chair in crucial discussions.
One strong Plant in the team.
A good spread of mental abilities.
A spread in personal characteristics giving a wide coverage of team roles – teams that can accommodate most or all the team roles perform better than others.
A good match between team members’ attributes and their responsibilities in the team – in the most successful teams, the members’ responsibilities fit their team profiles.
Recognition of imbalance in the team and the ability to adjust to it - teams that have this kind of self-awareness and are prepared to adapt or change roles to build on their strengths or compensate for their weaknesses, are at an advantage.