Conclusion

3.5 0ur experience of working as a team has shown us that there is no such person as ‘the perfect team member’. We all bring skills and challenges to the group. No one individual can be sensitive and forceful, dynamic and patient, decisive and reflective all at the same time. The personality test and Belbin test showed us that we have plenty of talented members but maybe, as a group of self-selected garden design students, some characteristics were more dominant and some were lacking. Out of seven of us we have at least two whose dominant traits are those of shapers and at least another two whose main characteristics are those of plants plus one resource instigator. There is no-one who, even as a secondary trait, fulfils the typical characteristics of a chairman. Belbin (1981, p.80) describes a team made up of such members as ‘a formula for a talking shop in which no one listens, follows up any of the points, or makes any decisions about what to do.’ I think many of us would recognise that this was what was happening during the initial meetings. Fortunately, people have secondary traits which also come in to play when circumstances make it necessary. A number of people had the characteristics of team worker, company worker and implementer as secondary traits which enabled a more consensus-based approach to be successful to bring the project to a conclusion