Much of what is most important about management is interpersonal, how we deal with others.Figure 3 R. Meredith Belbin
Table 1 Belbin's team roles
Role type	Description	Characteristics
Implementer	Likes to get on with the team's task(s) and sort out practical details	Dutiful, practical and quite cautious; predictable and sometimes inflexible
Coordinator	Encourages team members to make their point but keeps the team going in the right direction	Calm, self-confident and supportive; does not get involved in matters of detail
Shaper	Provides drive and energy to the team's work, but can try to influence it with their own views	Outgoing, dynamic, challenging; impatient and sometimes provocative
Plant	Offers lots of imaginative ideas or specialist knowledge to the task	Creative thinker, often unorthodox; likes to work alone and not very practical
Resource investigator	Provides lots of information and has lots of useful contacts	Highly communicative, enthusiastic and curious; easily bored
Monitor/Evaluator	Likes to observe and measure how well the team are doing	Prudent, hard-headed and a good judge; at times rather unemotional
Teamworker	Does things to keep up team spirit or morale	Socially orientated, sensitive and responsive; sometimes indecisive
Completer/Finisher	Makes sure that all tasks are finished off completely	Painstaking, orderly, conscientious; can be anxious and find it difficult to 'let go'
(Source: adapted from Belbin, 1981)
It is important to bear in mind that Belbin's roles are not something anyone is born into.Adult state is associated with calm, rational, objective behaviour where the individual focuses on gaining better factual understanding of a situation.There will inevitably be some vying for particular roles, or conflict amongst those members who have differing priorities.These are outlined in Table 1.