The relevance and practicality of Belbin’s work on what makes successful teams appears to be widely recognised and a number of LIFOŽ users want to be able to use the LIFOŽ tool and Belbin’s team composition approach together. Belbin’s hypothesis is that successful teams are so because a number of essential roles are competently filled by the members. Clearly it would be a pointer to the extent to which a role would be filled in a team to be able to identify the inclinations to behave in ways which would be compatible with the filling of that role. Equally clearly, inclination cannot be the whole story. Are the competencies present to execute the role effectively? Even if the inclinations are there for the role, would the individual having them behave in such a way as to fill it destructively?
If we accept that a person’s LIFOŽ operating style is a practical guide to how he or she might go about tasks and relationships then it should be equally useful in predicting how someone might go about these within the team. At least we will be able to get at the mix of preferences and prejudices which he or she will bring to the team. We also have a considerable amount of information about what behavioural preferences or inclinations are compatible with different roles, with one exception. Bringing together the information derived from members’ completion of their individual LIFOŽ surveys and the indications for each team role we can make a rough and ready, and in most cases quite adequate, inference about who might fill which role.
Below are set out seven of the eight Team Roles with a description of the behavioural inclinations which appear to be compatible with the role and in an indication of the pattern from the LIFOŽ survey which would be most likely to indicate that a person has these inclinations. I have not included the Role of "Specialist" which is now part of the current Belbin typology because I feel that anyone in a team, whatever Role they fill, can be a specialist, and that this element in the composition of a team is of a different order from the other eight. The Role of "Plant" also has elements which are different from the other seven, although it is of the same order.
This leaves the role of the Plant. The vital elements in this role seem to be intelligence, imagination and conceptual capacity, none of which are looked at by the LIFOŽŽ survey - or by any other similar instrument. Specialsed tests can reveal the propensity towards these attributes. Belbin used The Watson-Glaser
CTA and 16PF to provide evidence on which to predict them. The behavioural preference in LIFOŽ terms of a Plant could be almost any combination of Orientations although it is reasonable to believe that dominant Conserving-Holding behaviour would be unexpected in someone who, to quote Belbin, "advances new ideas and strategies".
When we use the LIFOŽ Life Orientation Survey in connection with building or strengthening teams we deliberately avoid putting permanent labels on team members. Belbin’s principles hold for any team but they ought not to give the idea that an individual is "cut-out" for a particular role or two just because he or she has completed a self perception inventory. The circumstances surrounding every team are special to that team and will have their influence on what inclinations a person may have in that situation. For example, using the LIFOŽ Life Orientation Survey we can predict how perceived threat can cause a change in a person’s inclinations. Someone who is in stress may well not use the same strengths that are desirable for the role that is "him" or "her".
We can also explore the potential for the person to display the "allowable" weaknesses of which Belbin writes. We can see the extent to which members are likely to see excesses in others as allowable, irritating or intolerable. By getting members to address these issues we can help the team to be collectively more appreciative of one another’s strengths and more tolerant of each others’ weaknesses. Given an understanding of the dynamics and environment of the particular team we can help members fill the role or roles Belbin has formulated - for that team.