It was only when they gathered as a team that things became fraught. When she talked one on one with members of her study group, the exchanges were friendly and warm. Each was composed of people who were bright and outgoing. It always struck Rozovsky as odd that her experiences with the two groups were dissimilar. Her case team, however, stuck together for the two years she was at Yale. Rozovsky’s study group dissolved in her second semester (it was up to the students whether they wanted to continue). (The microgym - with two stationary bicycles and three treadmills - still exists.) ‘‘No one worried that the rest of the team was judging them.’’ Eventually, the team settled on a plan for a microgym with a handful of exercise classes and a few weight machines. Most of the proposals were impractical, but ‘‘we all felt like we could say anything to each other,’’ Rozovsky told me.
Someone else suggested filling the space with old video games. Rozovsky proposed a nap room and selling earplugs and eyeshades to make money. One of her favorite competitions asked teams to come up with a new business to replace a student-run snack store on Yale’s campus. When it came time to brainstorm, ‘‘we had lots of crazy ideas,’’ Rozovsky said. They emailed one another dumb jokes and usually spent the first 10 minutes of each meeting chatting. Despite their disparate backgrounds, however, everyone clicked.
#Chitchat def professional
The members of her case-competition team had a variety of professional experiences: Army officer, researcher at a think tank, director of a health-education nonprofit organization and consultant to a refugee program. The competitions were voluntary, but the work wasn’t all that different from what Rozovsky did with her study group: conducting lots of research and financial analyses, writing reports and giving presentations. A classmate mentioned that some students were putting together teams for ‘‘case competitions,’’ contests in which participants proposed solutions to real-world business problems that were evaluated by judges, who awarded trophies and cash. So Rozovsky started looking for other groups she could join. ‘‘I always felt like I had to be careful not to make mistakes around them.’’ ‘‘People would try to show authority by speaking louder or talking over each other,’’ Rozovsky told me. There were conflicts over who was in charge and who got to represent the group in class. When the group met, teammates sometimes jockeyed for the leadership position or criticized one another’s ideas.
The team’s dynamics could put her on edge. ‘‘I always felt like I had to prove myself,’’ she said. Instead, Rozovsky’s study group was a source of stress. ‘‘There are lots of people who say some of their best business-school friends come from their study groups,’’ Rozovsky told me. These shared experiences, Rozovsky hoped, would make it easy for them to work well together. Everyone was smart and curious, and they had a lot in common: They had gone to similar colleges and had worked at analogous firms. To prepare students for that complex world, business schools around the country have revised their curriculums to emphasize team-focused learning.Įvery day, between classes or after dinner, Rozovsky and her four teammates gathered to discuss homework assignments, compare spreadsheets and strategize for exams. A worker today might start the morning by collaborating with a team of engineers, then send emails to colleagues marketing a new brand, then jump on a conference call planning an entirely different product line, while also juggling team meetings with accounting and the party-planning committee. programs, a way for students to practice working in teams and a reflection of the increasing demand for employees who can adroitly navigate group dynamics. Study groups have become a rite of passage at M.B.A. When Rozovsky arrived on campus, she was assigned to a study group carefully engineered by the school to foster tight bonds. So in 2009, she chose the path that allowed her to put off making a decision: She applied to business schools and was accepted by the Yale School of Management. program - but nothing seemed exactly right. She thought about various opportunities - Internet companies, a Ph.D. ‘‘I wanted to be part of a community, part of something people were building together,’’ she told me. All she knew for certain was that she wanted to find a job that was more social. Maybe a big corporation would be a better fit. Then she became a researcher for two professors at Harvard, which was interesting but lonely. She had worked at a consulting firm, but it wasn’t a good match. L ike most 25-year-olds, Julia Rozovsky wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life.
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