Dear Organlearners,
Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> writes:
>I wondered that the name of Meredith Belbin is not yet mentioned.
>Here in Europe his theory of the 8 or 9 team roles is very popular
>and probably also known in other parts of the world. Belbin has
>observed in successful teams that 8 characters should be present.
>
>Since a team as a whole acts as a creative organism, I was
>wondering if the team roles as Belbin has defined, show some
>parallels with the 7 essentialities of At de Lange. Although not
>always straight forward, I think there are:
Greetings Leo,
Thank you very much for this "begetting connection" (essentiality
fruitfulness).
I have not copied your table of matching (one to one) the Belbin
categories (type of workers in a team) with the seven essentialities to
save space (see LO20901). Some of us may argue with one or two of your
matchings. But what is really important, is to see the overall picture and
its implications.
Since I have discovered the seven essentialities, I have been struck
by the fact how many people have an inclination towards one (and with
less and less frequency two, three, ...) of them. What your mathcing
does, is to affirm this observation.
The fact that a person usually has a special affinity for one or two
of the essentialities can have important ramifications for managing
organisations. A person attracted to the essentiality, for example,
wholeness will think differently than a person attracted to sureness.
Eventhough unkown to you fellow learners, I cannot offer a bettter
example than from my country's own history -- Prime Ministers JC Smuts
(father of holism) and JBM Herzog. Smuts was intensely attracted to
wholeness whereas Herzog was deeply commited to sureness.
The fact that people think differently because they are atracted to
different essentialities, is not a problem. It is covered by the
essentiality otherness. The actual problems arise when these people
have to work together as a team.
Sometimes the problem is caused by the environment (context) in which
the team has to work. The environment may force the team to do things
which destroy teambuilding rather than promote it. For example, Smuts
and Herzog were able to work together in the Anglo-Boer war
(1899-1902) and the subsequent rebuilding of the country (1902-1910).
But as soon as the country was given self-governing status by Brittain
(1910, Union of South Africa), their paths split and they became
political opponents. They were unable to work together as a team in
the model of democracy based on parties, except for a brief period
after many years. In 1936, after the economic depression and the
looming world war II, Smuts suggested that they should unite their
forces to save South Africa. This team (political alliance called the
United Party) lasted for a few years up to the outbreak of WWII
(1939). But the split soon came exactly because of the different ways
they thought about the war.
I studied the history of both extensively. I was surprised to find out
that both Smuts and Herzog were concerned why they could not see each
other eye to eye. In their prvate moments of refection they were
confused and saddened by the fact that they could not fathom the exact
nature of their differences. But in public they had to comply to their
political parties and the competition for votes these parties
required. From this we can learn that competition within a team will
have disastrous effects on teambuilding when apples have to compete
with pairs as to which are the best quinces.
Why could Smuts and Herzog not fathom the exact nature of their
differences, despite the fact that they were highly intelligent and
humane men, having had so much in common? Two of the seven
essentialities were involved in their differences. The fact that
essentialities were involved, requires a very complex level of
thinking. Both Smuts (wholeness) and Herzog (sureness) firmly believed
that they had a grib on something essential to all life, something
going far beyond party politics. But both failed to harmonise their
beliefs because of a lack in the other six essentialities. Thus each
one of them could not grow further in the very essentiality to which
he was attracted so much, eventually becoming aware of other things in
the same level of complexity. The lesson for teamwork is the danger of
specialisation. A number of specialists brought together does not
constitute a team. But when each member of the group learns what makes
every other member in the group a specialist, the group becomes ready
to transform into a team.
In LO20928 Dan Burnstein <npro1@ziplink.net> writes:
>I am curious if folks think that compressing the 8 categories
>into 4 loses something in the translation?
after having matched (many to one) the 8 catergores of Belbin to the
four categories of Marston. Again I will not copy his matching
(translation) table.
Greetings Dan,
I think we lose and we win something, arriving at something which is
different. How? You have used the word "translation" in describing the
matching. It gives me an idea to explain it to you. When we translate
a text from one language to another, the result is never the same,
eventhough we may try to obtain a perfect identity. The majority of
words in one language do not have exact equivalents in another
language.
What do we win? We broaden our own understanding. But we lose by
narrowing the pretranslated understanding. To overcome this loss, we
should try and work with both the original and the translated. For
example, in our Bible study group I have vivid experiences of this. I
am the only member who can read the orginal text in Greek. The rest
read the Afrikaans translation of the Bible -- a very good translation
if I may say so. Yet several times during a study session they realise
that the Afrikaans text is saying something which begs for more
understanding. In the majority of cases when I explain to them what
the orginal text in Greek is saying, the light suddenly goes up for
them.
What lesson can we learn from this for teambuilding? Every member of a
team should be willing and able to explain to any other member what
and how he/she is doing whatever it is. Learning is not enough -- it
begs for teaching. This mutual teaching-learning leads to the
"compression" which you refered to until the team becomes like one,
yet each doing his/her own work.
With respect to the seven essentialities, this "compression" means
that we should try to understand what they do all together as one
category. They determine the form of any creative outcome. This is
what we win. But we should also not lose sight of what each one does,
otherwise we will lose in creativity.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>