BELBIN ANNOUNCE THE PASSING OF DR. MEREDITH BELBIN, LEGENDARY PIONEER OF TEAM ROLE THEORY
Belbin is saddened to announce the passing of its inspirational founder, Dr Raymond Meredith Belbin, who died peacefully at home surrounded by his family aged 98 years old.
A great man. A great mind. A great legacy.
His legacy has transformed the world’s understanding of workplace teams and his work is utilised daily around the globe in corporate business and academia. His lectures, original thinking and ongoing research have inspired students, corporate professionals and academics for six decades and have earned him the title of one of the management greats.
Known as the ‘father of Team Roles’, Belbin devoted his professional life to improving team performance and challenging thinking around organisational design. He continued to travel the globe delivering lectures and new material well into his 80s, with his works translated into 25 languages and with distribution partners in 35 countries. Up until his passing he was still an active Patron of Belbin Ltd., regularly visiting the head office, and he was working on his latest book at the time of his death. Fenlan from Belbin Australia had the great honour of assisting Meredith to edit this latest book and to spend some time with him. Indeed, several of the Australian team are very glad of the chance that they had to see Meredith and spend some time with him last July just before and during the global Belbin conference in Cambridge.
Talan Miller, Managing Director, Belbin Australia, says; “We all owe Meredith Belbin a great deal for his beautiful humanity and his wonderful ideas that have genuinely helped so many people around the world, and will continue to do so. Those who had the privilege to know him will miss him a great deal.”
Jo Keeler, Managing Director, Belbin Ltd UK, says; “Meredith was both a scholar and a gentleman, with a genuine interest in everyone he met. He was insatiably curious and had recently started a new book. Over the coming weeks, we will look back fondly on the time we spent with Meredith. Once the sadness has passed, we will begin to celebrate his life. I think it is fair to say that Meredith had a long life, which was very well lived. His legacy will continue to help individuals understand their contributions when working in teams, which in turn will positively impact businesses for many years to come. We will miss him enormously.”
Meredith Belbin’s groundbreaking theory stemmed from meticulous and pioneering research in the 1960s and 70s. In an ambitious project, Meredith and his research team closely studied managers participating in business games only to discover that behavioural diversity – and not intelligence – was the determining factor in team success. Belbin Team Role theory has come to be regarded as a cornerstone of management consultancy and HR practice.
Dr Belbin was born in Sevenoaks, Kent in 1926. He studied Classics and Psychology at Clare College, Cambridge. He was appointed a research fellow at Cranfield College (now Cranfield School of Management at Cranfield University) and later returned to Cambridge to Chair the Industrial Training Research Unit (ITRU) where his wife, Eunice, was director.
He consulted for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and worked with the US Department of Labor where he became an early proponent of “work experience” – a new-fangled concept at the time. Much of his work related to re-training older members of the workforce.
During the 1960s and 70s at Cambridge’s ITRU, he conducted the research that would define his career. In the 1980s and 90s he published his seminal books, Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail and Team Roles at Work. He developed a world-renowned reputation as a management theorist and travelled the world sharing his thinking, knowledge and experiences with management schools, HR professionals, managers and business leaders.
Alongside his wife and his son, Nigel, he established Belbin Associates (now Belbin Limited) to encapsulate his findings, wisdom and experience in the form of Interplace – a software platform that gave access to the gold-standard team tool to organisations and consultants across the globe. Today, his legacy, Belbin Limited, is a thriving business which enjoys a global reach, with distributors in thirty-five countries and territories.
Belbin was fascinated by differences between individuals, their differing potentials and how they can contribute in their own unique way. He believed that everyone has something to offer if only we can discover their unique strengths and encourage them to use them.
Dr Belbin is survived by his son, Nigel, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Rest In Peace Meredith and thank you for all that you have done for us.
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