The Team You Build Is the Company You Build

Editor's note: Article's author Katarina Künnapas has worked with Belbin Team Roles since her university days and has collaborated with me across multiple organisations over more than a decade. She is the founder of Team Fraction and brings 15 years of HR experience spanning recruitment, team building, and coaching leaders. I asked her four questions about how the method has shaped her thinking. Her answers arrived in one sitting, unedited. I have kept them that way. The italic notes and links are mine. – Mats Soomre

I have been collaborating with Mats Soomre and applying Belbin Team Roles since my university days. My very first encounter made me listen with intense focus. A split second later, I got the strange feeling that a stranger might know me better than I knew myself, and by the third second, impatience set in alongside a desire to learn more: "I want that too!" I was extremely impatient, but Mats ignored me — I even started to worry. In the end, just as I had given up and felt discouraged, he said to me: "I saw you right away, but I deliberately saved you for last."

That moment sparked my interest not just in people, but in true team dynamics. A team can always achieve so much more when you know how to assemble it correctly and get it running smoothly – or conversely, set it up wrong and experience endless friction.

We also collaborated at Askend, running a series of workshops alongside 1:1 sessions with managers and Mats to equip leadership with the knowledge and skills to lead their teams effectively.

Working with Mats is always eye-opening – I experience it every single time. No matter how experienced we are as leaders or how well we think we know people, we often forget these principles in the heat of daily execution. We tend to jump to conclusions: "This person is untalented, weak, wrong, or difficult." Mats, however, always asks questions in a way that makes you realise the real question is: "Do I actually know who my team members are, how they work, what their strengths are, and why someone is struggling right now? Why am I jumping to conclusions before I've actually looked into the matter?"

The jump from "this person is difficult" to "do I understand what they bring?" is where most leadership friction sits. For the full argument, read Difficult People Don't Exist. Misunderstood Behaviour Does.

Often, these questions alone are enough to spark a dialogue. Communication adapts, small daily actions shift, and the outcome flips 180 degrees. There are no "difficult" or "weak" people — only wrong roles, misaligned communication, and goals or work that fail to leverage individual strengths.

With 15 years of HR experience – spanning recruitment, team building, and coaching leaders — I am absolutely convinced that Belbin and Mats provide concrete input and actionable guidelines for achieving top-tier team performance.

What I No Longer Believe

Before, I believed (like many do) that employees are simply "right/strong" or "wrong/weak." I didn't realise that roles, processes, and task design play a far greater part, and that aligning these with individual strengths dictates success much more than we think. In other words: there are only wrong roles, misaligned communication, and goals that fail to account for strengths.

In myself, what changed most was the speed at which I jump to conclusions. While our default tendency is to judge quickly, Mats's questions taught me to look inward first and ask:

"Do I truly know who my people are, how they operate, and why someone is currently stuck?" My impatience was replaced by systematic, empathetic observation – the understanding that the right team balance and strength-based leadership prevent endless friction and deliver top results.

The gap between how we see ourselves and how our team experiences us is larger than most people expect. Read Self-Awareness: You Think You Know Yourself. Your Team Sees Something Different.

Three Phrases I Use Every Day

• "Do you actually know who your team members are, or are you just assuming?" – I use this question daily whenever I hit a leadership roadblock. It shifts focus from assumptions to actual strengths and behavioural patterns.

• "There are no unsuitable people, only unsuitable roles and misconfigured communication." – The cornerstone of my leadership philosophy in both hiring and org design.

• "Every weakness is simply the inevitable byproduct of a strength – don't try to 'fix' it; balance it with the right partner." – Helps stop the urge to "re-educate" people and shifts focus to smart team assembly.

Editor's note: For why fixing weaknesses fails – and what to do instead – read Let's Talk About Weakness

Another key insight for me: whenever I have friction in the team, I ask – is my frustration with a team member coming from the fact that they aren't performing in the "right way", or because they aren't doing it the way I would do it? And do I even want them to act exactly like me? Do I want another version of myself on the team, or do I need them precisely because their strengths cover my weaknesses? They aren't doing it wrong; they are doing it differently. That difference creates healthy debate to reach the best solution. We naturally tend to hire people who resemble us, but to achieve peak performance, a team must cover diverse needs, complement each other, and support rather than duplicate.

Katarina writes about the system behind this in her own practice: What If High Performance Is a Byproduct of a Strong System? The same principle – different encoding, not wrong encoding – runs through how teams communicate. Read Same Message. Four Completely Different Sentences.

What Has Improved – and What Still Needs Work

What has improved: knowledge is one thing; execution is another. What has improved is that pure theory is turning into daily practice – for real, not just in words. When building or leading a team, I always think first about how it functions as a holistic system.

What still needs work: within myself, my natural impatience (which showed up back in my student days!) still requires conscious control. I constantly remind myself to trust the process and give people time to open up. In the team, we still need to build the muscle of keeping this focus under high pressure and tight deadlines, so we don't slip back into old habits of quick judgements during crises.

When strengths operate under pressure, they can tip from useful to destructive. Read When Strengths Go Too Far

What I Disagreed with at First – and Why It Turned Out to Be the Best Lesson

To this day, I remember how he intentionally ignored me as a student and saved me for last – it frustrated me immensely at the time! In hindsight, it was the single best lesson because it exposed my own impatience and forced me to genuinely engage. Mats didn't just read my profile; he created a situation that showed me my own reaction and a part of myself I didn't want to accept. Yes, I do have weaknesses or traits I wouldn't choose to have if I had the choice. It made me realise how vital it is to notice, listen to, and truly engage with your team members. It pushed me to pay closer attention to the people around me and their strengths, rather than just focusing on myself and my own capabilities. It was a fundamental shift from a "me" to a "team" mindset.

Friendly warning: for leaders, it always starts with looking at yourself as you truly are — not just your strengths (which we are usually aware of, at least in part), but also your weaknesses under pressure, stress, or in the wrong environment. It may trigger resistance, but let it sink in. Building a strong team starts with understanding yourself.

We can talk endlessly about tools or AI taking over, but as long as we do business for people and with people – and remain human ourselves – our success will always be determined by how well we build and lead teams. The team you build is the company you build.

About the Author

Katarina Künnapas is the founder of Team Fraction and has 15 years of experience in HR, recruitment, team building, and coaching leaders. She has applied Belbin Team Roles in her work since her university days and continues to collaborate with Mats Soomre across organisations.

Katarina's experience started with one uncomfortable moment and one question she couldn't shake: "Do I actually know who my people are?" Fifteen years later, she uses that question every day. If you have never asked it – about yourself or about your team – the answer is probably more surprising than you expect. See your own profile → and invite one colleague to do the same. The conversation that follows is where it starts.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How do I know if someone is in the wrong role at work?

The person works hard but the energy cost is disproportionate to the output.

Their frustrations are consistent and specific – drained by the same type of task every time, not unhappy in general. Ask what drains their energy. If the answer points to the structure of the work rather than the people around them, the role is the problem. A Belbin Job Report analyses the behavioural demands of any job and compares them with the person's strengths – the mismatch becomes visible and specific.

Why do leaders keep hiring people who resemble themselves?

Because similarity feels like competence.

When a candidate thinks and communicates the way you do, the conversation flows – and flow is easily mistaken for fit. The result is a team that agrees quickly, misses the same blind spots, and competes for the same contribution. The fix is knowing your own behavioural profile well enough to recognise what is missing, then hiring for the gap deliberately.

What is the difference between a weak employee and someone in the wrong role?

Someone in the wrong role responds almost immediately when the work changes.

Their energy shifts, their contribution becomes visible, and the friction disappears – because the friction was never about the person. A genuinely underperforming employee does not respond to adjusted expectations or better-matched work. Most cases leaders label as "weak" are a mismatch, not a capability problem. Ask before any performance conversation: does this person's natural contribution match what this job requires?

How do I stop jumping to conclusions about my team members?

Replace the judgement with a question: do I know what their behavioural strengths are and why they are struggling right now?

If the answer is no, the conclusion is premature. Collect observer data – structured feedback from colleagues who actually work with the person. The gap between what you assumed and what the data shows is where the real conversation needs to happen. Quick judgements under pressure are natural. Acting on them before checking is expensive.

What does working with a Belbin team coach look like from the client side?

It starts with seeing your own data – a behavioural profile built from both self-perception and observer feedback.

The conversation that follows is about what you actually do in a team and what the people around you experience. Over time, the questions the coach asks become your own daily tools. Leaders who have worked with Belbin over years describe the same shift: they stop classifying people as strong or weak and start asking whether the work matches the person.