An appreciative look at team roles is an obvious choice. When we are aware which roles come easily to us, and in which roles others excel, differences between people start to have value. We are able to complement each other, learn from each other, and increase the odds that our mutual efforts lead to more than the sum of our individual qualities. However, we also know that all this does not come naturally. Understanding each other, appreciating our differences and working with people who have a very different way of looking at things is a challenge.

When I talk about an appreciative look at Belbin team roles, I am basing this on Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a philosophy and method introduced by David Cooperrider in the mid-1980s. During his doctorate research, he discovered that how research questions are asked has a large bearing on the outcome of the research. For instance, he wrote:

Positive questions lead to positives images; positive images lead to positive actions.

In the following years he developed Appreciative Inquiry, together with Jane Magruder Watkins and others. This approach does not focus on solving a problem; rather, we ask for stories about situations in which an individual, a team or an organisation has made a difference in reference to a particular topic.

This approach is primarily a way of looking at things. This makes Appreciative Intervention, my translation into Dutch of the name Appreciative Inquiry, suitable for use alongside any other method or model: strategic development, coaching, team development, Lean and so on. In this article I will discuss the possibilities an appreciative approach allows professionals working with Belbin’s team roles.

An appreciative way of looking at things

An important source of appreciative intervention is the social constructionist principle. This theory is based on the idea that an “independent reality” does not exist. Instead, by our constant interactions humans create a shared reality which becomes our “truth”. This means we can never have an objective image of the world around us, because we were part of creating that image in the first place, and we continue to create it as we talk about it. As Ken Gergen said: “The words we use create the world we live in.” He calls us “relational beings” in his book of the same title. We are constantly communicating with others, he states, even when we are alone – when we talk to others inside our own heads, as it were.

When we look at people as rational beings, what follows is that our identity is flexible: people adapt their behaviour according to the situation or the person they are interacting with. While we may take the leadership role on one occasion, we might become someone completely different on another. Our behaviour is based on what we ourselves bring to the table (our temperament, preference for team role or learning style, etc.) and the environment in which we operate.

And here we find the first contribution of the appreciative approach to Belbin’s work: a more nuanced view of the importance of team roles. The role we take on in a situation is largely driven by our perception of that situation; we modify our behaviour accordingly. Moreover, we often do this subconsciously. One example: because we do not want to deviate from what is customary within a certain group or context.

An appreciative approach to team roles creates a more relaxed view: no individual is always the same, and team roles can shift depending on the situation and the people we are working with. This approach prevents us from putting restrictive labels on ourselves and others, or from saying: “Well, that’s just the way I am…”

An appreciative way of behaving

An important asset appreciative intervention has brought to the field is a method known as the “appreciative interview”. This is a conversation based on a guideline developed beforehand with some of the participants. During the interview, two participants explore valuable experiences, ideals and aspiration around a set theme: cooperation, excellent customer service, customer satisfaction and so on.

An appreciative interview always starts with the request to tell a story about a situation that has proved successful in the past. Next, the participants try to find out together why this situation was a success: which skills, qualities and factors played a role? From this, the next question usually follows: if all these skills and factors were realised in the future, what would this look like? This way the participants create an image of an ideal situation – based on past success.

Secondly, I see great opportunities when we combine a discussion about team roles with this appreciative method. Using this method, we anchor the qualities the several team roles bring to the fore into concrete experiences, allowing us to focus on the question, “how we can use the various team roles to shape the ideal situation?”

An example

The works council of a large corporation asked for my help. A conflict between members of different unions had led to a severe breakdown of relations within the council. And since the board of directors had announced a series of cutbacks, the works council needed to drastically improve their internal cooperation to step up to their role as partners in this process.

As they knew about my tendency towards the appreciative approach, the works council’s board stressed that this approach was not their preferred approach. The board felt that all issues should be brought to the table and discussed openly.

I wasn’t keen on “openly discussing” a breach of trust with 25 works council members liaised to four different unions. I suggested we have an intake meeting with two representatives of each union, lasting no more than two hours.

My first request during this meeting was for each participant to introduce themselves to me by telling a story: “Which of the works council’s achievements during the past year made you most proud? Which one made you think: this is why I became a member in the first place!” After some incredulous looks, the first participant started their story. Each participant told me – and each other! – why they were happy to have joined. Every one of them was able to describe a success story that made the works council membership worthwhile for them.

After this, I asked the participants to think of someone they often disagreed with. This person was to be their partner in the next phase of our meeting. The council members present interviewed each other about their conflict. The first question was: “Tell me a story about when you were part of a conflict that had a successful outcome. What happened? Who were involved? What did you contribute?” And so on.

In this way, “conflict” was central to the interview, but I gave it a positive – appreciative – twist. We worked with four questions in all, the others being about values vital to the works council members, and their wishes for the future.

After the interview phase, the group re-joined me. Two men who had sat together immediately told me they hadn’t dealt with the assignment at all, setting aside the form with questions straight away. I asked them what they had done in the half hour they had just spent together. After some hesitation, one of them said they had had a very good talk and that he could actually understand why his counterpart was so angry and disappointed on how things were done in their council. The other answered that he had realised during their talk that he had become suspicious person, and that he didn’t want to be that way at all. He wanted to get rid of his distrust and asked the other participants to help him.

This first interaction paved the way for an open meeting in which all participants were happy to share, followed by two workshop sessions, during which the council members worked on remodelling their differences into productive assets. Mutual trust returned, and the works council became a serious participant in talks with management once more.

A design for a workshop on Appreciative intervention using
Belbin team roles

I like to start a workshop session with an interview. This creates a positive context and a framework for a discussion about Belbin  team roles. The initial question for this appreciative interview could be: “Tell me a story about a situation in which you made a difference within this organisation.” Follow-up questions can explore what the exact role of the subject was in this success story – asking different questions of people with different team roles (see below).

After the workshop participants have discussed this one-on-one, they sit together in small groups and share the success stories and the individual contributions that have been made. In all likelihood, during these group sessions, concepts that look like team roles start to emerge.

Next, participants are offered the opportunity to create an image of the ideal future. The initial question in this phase is: “Imagine, it is 1 January 20…, and you and your colleagues bring your best – every moment of every day. Team roles are complementary and every team member has the opportunity to make a difference in their own way. What does this look like?” The participants are encouraged to use lively imagery and metaphors to paint this ideal picture.

In the next step, the team comes up with ways to best use the team members’ differences. Which conditions are important? Which other people can play a part? What are the means the teams has and needs? What could be the first small step?

In this workshop design, I have made the team roles central in the steps at the core of the appreciative approach. A four-hour workshop could look like this:

15 minutes Introduction

45 minutes Appreciative interviews

15 minutes Exchange in small groups

15 minutes Break

60 minutes Belbin test and explanation

30 minutes Imagining the ideal situation

15 minutes Break

30 minutes Increasing chances of success

15 minutes Determining first small steps and round-up

Examples of questions for different team roles

An appreciative interview always starts with the question: “Tell me a story about a situation in which …” People with different team roles will tell different kinds of stories. We can adjust the initial question to a number of working style preferences, according to the Belbin model. For example:

Questions for a Plant could be: Tell me a story about a situation in which an idea you supplied led to a remarkable result. Why did this idea appeal to others? How did you get the others to successfully implement your idea?

We could ask a Co-ordinator: Tell me a story about a situation in which you achieved success with a group of people. How did you make sure the group members remained focused on your common goal? To what degree did the situation serve your own purpose?

A good initial question for a Shaper is: Tell me a story about a situation where you could focus all your energy on a project and create something amazing. How did you encourage others? Which conditions were important to effectively channel your passion?

A Resource Investigator will likely easily answer the following questions: Tell me a story about a situation in which your enthusiasm really helped your team forward. How did you influence the group? What was your contribution?

Good questions for the Implementer are: Tell me a story about a situation in which your structured and organised actions were crucial in achieving a result. What did you do? How did others respond to you? What was the result of this?

An interview with a Monitor Evaluator can start with questions like: Tell me a story about a situation in which you helped a group with your thinking power and analytical skills. Who did you connect with and how did you manage that? How did you ensure the group’s attention was focused on your contribution?

A Teamworker enjoys talking about their ability to connect with others. Questions for them could be: Tell me a story about a situation in which you influenced a group process so that the group excelled. How did you contribute to the success? Which of your own ambitions was fulfilled during this project?

We can ask a Completer Finisher: Tell me a story about a situation in which you were incremental in finishing a project successfully. What was the nicest compliment you received about this? And to what degree have you been able to create co-ownership for the result within the group?

The pattern in all these interviews is that we ask the subject to tell a story, initially connecting with the strengths attached to our subject’s team role. Our additional questions are aimed at exploring whether they have been able to utilise that strength to aid the group effort.

Belbin Magazine, publication Teamrolacademie, 2015

For dutch readers: Lees de blog van Hanneke Laarakker met Nederlandse versie van het artikel hier

By Willem de Wijs
Willem is an organizational psychologist, and a lecturer at the Instituut voor Interventiekunde (Institute for Interventionism) in Amsterdam. He worked closely with Wick.

Wick and I met in the Nederlands Instituut voor Psychologen (NIP; Netherlands Institute for Psychologists). We became friends: we never stopped talking, preferably in a bar with drinks and ‘bitterballen’.

When Wick started his Institute he asked me to be a guest lecturer in organizational change and development.

I left Tata Steel Europe; Wick asked me to join him at the Institute. I added new perspectives to the social psychology foundation: management experience, systems thinking, and (international) profit-oriented company experience.

Wick learned from his parents to do well in the world: he described himself as being almost naïve in wanting to make the world a better place. Based on the reactions of his friends, students and colleagues to his passing away, I’m certain he succeeded.

He did so not only by being the beautiful human being he was, but also through his work as an interventionist, consultant, teacher, coach and trainer.

During the time he was studying Social Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and after, Wick was involved in Jannie de Weerd’s Social Psychology of Intervening course, which he was involved in, first as a student and later as a lecturer, along with Marjoka van Doorn. This course was based on teaching students the theory, skills and practice of intervening in groups and organizations using applied social psychology and group dynamics principles.

The serious scholar–practitioner in Wick was thrilled by reading “classical stuff” by Lewin, Weick, Argyris, Schein, Johnson and Johnson, Burke, Mintzberg, Shaw, Harrison, Bennis and Sheppard, Kolb, Gibbs and Block. I am probably leaving out many others, given the thousands of books Wick studied over the years.

About twelve years ago, the university chose other priorities and the program was slated to disappear. Wick decided to start his Instituut voor Interventiekunde (IvI; Institute for Interventionism). The institute was Wick, and Wick was the institute. He enriched the course by inviting guest teachers: I was one.

In search of the roots of group dynamics and organization development, he visited NTL. He ended up, as he said, in the “wrong room”: the organization development (OD) workshop he wanted to attend was cancelled, so he was invited to the Appreciative Inquiry workshop. That was central to the further development of his thinking and practice, both for himself and the Institute.

Although Wick always defined Appreciative Inquiry as a variant of Organizational Development, he was intrigued by the difference in the dominant discourse, the wholeness and the engagement, and its potential impact on society. And, of course, he followed both NTL programs: OD and AI. Always curious for new insights and interactions.

Wick and IvI started to offer shorter and longer courses on AI, alongside the course on interventionism; he became almost “an AI guru”. It’s a term he hated, because he regarded AI as a variant of classic interventions, not a fad or a cult, and he never intended to become anyone’s guru. And by acting in that way, he was an inspiring and successful teacher for his students, and an effective interventionist for clients.

All he wanted was to work with his students and clients on interventions they could and would want to apply the very next day in their own practice. No wonder his impact at a personal and organizational level is highly esteemed: he was intent on making the world a better place.

About five years ago he started an OD intervention on the Institute itself, developing himself as well in the process. I was so lucky to be a part of and to have contributed to that journey. The course for interventionism was redesigned and certified as a post-master’s program. This October, the first group of students received their certificates. The “back office” of the institute has been organized: Nathalie van der Vaart-van de Loo, his wife, has been a strong force. Wick even became an employer for a while, to his own astonishment and enjoyment.

He worked with a group of fellow practitioners he believed in and had fun with.

He was the great connector.

He planned to innovate: new research, new generations, new ways of practice.

He planned to finally write the book about the social psychology of intervening.

He planned to be more at home with Nathalie.

He planned…

Wick is no longer the Instituut, but the Instituut will live on in his spirit: making this world a better place.

February 2018 | Appreciating Peace

There are three reasons we wanted to have a memorial service for Wick in Amsterdam. First of all of because of his connection to the city. And secondly, to show his family how many people love him. They have had to endure his absence from many family gatherings, because he had to work. Or train for a triathlon. This changed in the last few months of his life; for once, family and friends came first. This brings me to the last reason we are gathered here today: we wanted to give everyone who knew him a chance to say goodbye to Wick.

Wick and I met in 2008, the year the first post-master’s course in Intervention Studies started. We were always open about having met each other on a dating website. His profile had said: “I love my job. Consider yourself warned!” Even though I tried to make him cut back on his work commitments, they only increased, eventually leading to me saying: “If you can’t beat them, join them.” I am so very grateful I made the choice of supporting you in your work from 2013 on, allowing you to fly even higher. You often called me your right-hand woman.

After your operation last August you were no longer aware of the left side of your body. When I arrived in the Recovery Room, you were holding your left hand in your right, bringing it to your mouth and kissing it. You thought it was my hand. You said: “You were my right hand, now you are my left hand too. You are everything.” And then you proposed… You were honestly wondering: “How did we manage it, getting this close…?”

If there is any one answer to that question, it is faith. Faith in always finding our way back to each other, faith in the love we have for each other, faith in how we view the world around us – even if that differs, faith in the fact that all will be well … You taught me that.

Just after his diagnosis Wick was looking at the process and its meaning, like the professional he was. But this time he himself was the process … something he found both intriguing and frustrating. Especially since he noticed that the brain tumour affected his cognitive abilities. And the same tumour caused his speech to become “uninhibited”, as the doctors say. Wick would say: “I need Mark [Lough] to tell me to shut up and help me to give meaning to all this.”

Because of the tumour and his medications, at first, Wick wasn’t aware of the severity of his situation. There was still strength in his words, but in fact he lacked the energy and focus necessary for recovery. When the surgeon told us he needed to recover in order to cope with the radiation that could prolong his life with a few months, Wick said: “That isn’t enough for me.” Unfortunately after all of the complications that followed the operation, we never had the choice.

Faith… At every step of this process we noticed we felt the same way. We wanted to spend the time we had left at home and in peace. In the video, Wick says that that is his essence: “Let’s do this – I am ready.” I discovered a deeper layer to this: LOVE and STRENGTH. The loving glances you shot me all the time, using your last ounce of strength to lift your arm to grab my hand – and to firmly hold on to it.… It was as if you wanted to say: “I am still here, I am holding on to life.” But also: “I am sending my heart’s strength to you, for you will need it when I am no longer here.” Such was Wick’s generosity of spirit.

Faith… The faith Wick put in me to make the hard decisions, such as going into a hospice to create even more peace in the last phase of his life. And even in the process of letting go, when we thought we’d said everything that needed to be said, Wick would wake up and we’d have a short conversation, giving me the faith I needed to guide Wick in his last days.

One of the last conversations we had was about dying. Wick had been awake a lot for a few days. I asked him whether he was afraid to go to sleep in case he might not wake up. But he wasn’t afraid. He did however feel that dying in your sleep would be rather boring. Curious to the last minute, he felt it would be quite exciting to consciously experience the process of dying.

For his last 20 hours Wick was asleep, but his breathing sounded like he was doing a triathlon. He wasn’t in pain, so without morphine or sleeping medication – as he had wanted – he ran his last race, with me cheering him on like I had during his triathlons: “You’re doing so well, I am so proud of you, you are so courageous. The finish is there where the great white light greets you. Go there now, calmly, at your own pace… Fall into the light…”

Simultaneously, in Amsterdam and at Odiyan Buddhist Retreat Center in California, ceremonies were dedicated to Wick with this intention:

Thank you, Wick van der Vaart, for all the wisdom and joy you have given to so many people around the world. Carry on your curiosity and appreciation to your next life to inspire many more.

Nathalie van der Vaart-van de Loo

How do we “speak” in the quest for Discovering, Dreaming, Designing and dwelling in our Destiny? What do we express? What surfaces in the verbal, written and visual symbols of communication? Do you sometimes reflect and wonder at the latent nuances of a conversation? How might we unleash sights, sounds and language to expand our stories? What are the processes, tools, and experience that make meaning bigger, bolder and more present on the journey of exploration and collective understanding?
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Call for submissions: Learning Leaders

We are looking for articles that connect your work with this emergent style of leadership called Learning Leaders. We want to have illustrations of Learning Leaders in a variety of contexts, organizations, and age cohorts. We encourage leaders of all ages and positions to contribute stories that define themselves or another as a Learning Leader. Creative contributions and formats are welcome.
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Originally, ‘politics’ was a means of resolving conflicts through conversation and negotiation, with the goal of finding common ground where a diversity of perspectives could exist. (more…)

Appreciative approach: The positive gaze upon our humanity

Vânia Bueno Cury

I have always been critical, and most of the time I have been driven by the desire for perfection. Thus, wherever I was or whatever I was doing, I always sought what was missing. As a foundation for this behavior, there was the justification that pursuing the best was a virtue.

My intention was good, but my extreme effort left a trace of tiredness and loss, especially in my relationships.

This mental model followed me in everything I did, and I have to admit that it helped me follow the challenging path towards self-development, seeking beauty and ethics with much persistence. I was self-demanding and wanted to do everything flawlessly at school, work and in life. My intention was good, but my extreme effort left a trace of tiredness and loss, especially in my relationships. Long years of therapy, meditation, courses and reading did not enable me to deal with the frustration of facing up to “imperfect and uncontrollable reality”.

This struggle was always present in my work as a journalist and as a young entrepreneur, setting up a communication studio. I have worked on PR projects with good clients and an engaging team for twenty years. This setting fostered the growth of the business and its recognition in the market.

In 2007, all was going very well: business was prospering, I was in a happy second marriage, and I had good clients. However, a strong cry for change came from within my heart. It had taken me some months of searching and anxiety until I could understand the reason for that recurring tiredness at the end of the day and for that disenchantment I had never felt beforehand. One day the answer came, crystal clear: I no longer wanted to invest my time and energy in just selling products and services. I wanted to work in assisting people develop through good communication and contribute to transforming the world.

This new clarity of purpose gave me courage, enabling a deep practice of detachment

This new clarity of purpose gave me courage, enabling a deep practice of detachment: in three months I referred my clients to other professionals, I out-placed my employees, and I left for a journey with no destination. I just knew I needed to be free, to go back to study and to find a new meaning for my existence.

Through a careful and unexpected weaving of synchronicities, I left Brazil: I was the second Brazilian to participate in the MPOD – Master of Science in Positive Organizational Development and Change at Case Western Reserve University, the cradle of AI. Nine years after this adventure, I can now very joyfully say that it was the best decision I have ever made.

Ever since, I have been working to connect communication and human development at organizations and schools. To my surprise, I became a university professor and the classroom has been the place where I feel the happiest and the most fulfilled. In conversation circles, I have been sharing the power of dialogue, conflict transformation, systemic vision, and emotional intelligence – always under the inspiration of the appreciative approach. As each process continues, I confirm the power that AI has for generating positive energy to foster change in projects, companies and communities.

Since the very beginning of each graduation group, one innovative intervention in my viewpoint is the use of the “4D AI cycles” for creating agreements for living together. In doing so, students and I have been able to create and support a more inclusive, respectful and collaborative culture. This contributes a lot to our co-learning and maturing.

Nevertheless, what most impresses me in the methodology is the potential to move people and generate inner dialogues. I very often hear feedback from participants like: “This experience changed my life” or “I will never be the same”. This is certainly very gratifying.

I should also say that I am still working on my transformation. For instance, in a recent dialogue with a dear and wise Brazilian professor of mine, Lia Diskin, everything made even more sense. Professor Diskin made me understand that the shadow of perfectionism withdraws us from our own humanity because it is the denial of our human nature. It is this human nature that makes us fail and make mistakes. For me, more than the efficient 4Ds methodology, AI is an enlightened lens through which to see and understand life. It is the way of compassion towards oneself and others, and a possible path for dreaming and gratitude.¹

AI: Creating magic for South African entrepreneurs

Judy Janse van Rensburg

Working with entrepreneurs as part of a business incubation program in one of South Africa’s poorest provinces has lead me to believe that AI might have magical properties. Entrepreneurs are dreamers, and AI is all about dreaming and making those dreams come alive. The combination of the Anticipatory principle, the Heliotropic principle and the use of appreciative language can lead to extraordinary results. Had I not witnessed these experiences first hand, I might not have believed it.

The poor survival rate of entrepreneurs is well documented and the evidence of broken dreams is often reflected in high unemployment figures. Trying to start a business with little or no funding in a poor province takes a lot of guts and determination, and most business owners will tell you that there are many times they have felt like giving up.

Understanding what ‘gives life’ to a system can mean the difference between success and disaster.

AI gave hope to entrepreneurs as they focused on their positive core. Getting to know themselves as entrepreneurs empowered them to see new possibilities and take positive action. Understanding what “gives life” to a system can mean the difference between success and disaster. When entrepreneurs are aware of what gives them life, and when they are at their best, they can harness that knowledge and create magic. When they are able to review their best experiences of dealing with clients, they become inspired to make more effective and strategic sales calls.

Knowing when they feel most energised and alive allows entrepreneurs to focus on their areas of brilliance and delegate the rest. Rapid business expansion then becomes possible, and to those on the outside it almost appears magical. The key is to spend enough time and go really deep with the dream – when the dream is clear and articulated, willpower becomes irrelevant and motivation is available in an instant.

The Anticipatory principle has two major elements: imagination and the  creation of a picture of the future. I witnessed the amazing strength and power of possibility when one of the entrepreneurs I was coaching was determined to pitch her business for funding, despite having started chemotherapy two days prior to the pitch. She made a conscious decision to focus on life-giving activities for herself as well as her business, as she had a very clear picture of the future.

‘In what ways could I attract more of my ideal clients?’

Teaching entrepreneurs about the Heliotropic principle (what we focus on grows) enabled them to focus on creating and approaching their ideal clients, instead of focusing on “not having money/sales”. Adopting appreciative language with entrepreneurs seemed, at times, to have almost magical results. With one entrepreneur in particular we reframed “I need to get more clients” to “In what ways could I attract more of my ideal clients?” Instead of making 100 sales calls per week, focusing on short term “jobs”, this entrepreneur could apply his efforts more strategically and focus his attention on attracting long-term, ideal clients, which saw him grow his business exponentially within a very short space of time. AI could be key to empowering more entrepreneurs in Africa.