Orientation Teamwork
FIRE AWAY: Each Learning Team built a catapult that was intended egg at a target 25 feet away without breaking the payload.
PHOTO BY STUART CAHILL
It may have looked like all fun and games, but the MBA Class of 2008 orientation in late August had a serious purpose — fostering teamwork. The day of activities, led by facilitators from Outward Bound Professional, was designed to give students comprising 152 newly formed Learning Teams a chance to get to know each other while introducing them to team-building techniques.
The afternoon “Learning Expedition” challenged students to complete eight specific tasks, ranging from building a catapult to safely launch an uncooked egg to filming a music video, in just over two hours. After each task, the teams huddled to discuss what they had learned. The facilitator awarded points for “productive debriefs” that produced lessons that could be applied to subsequent tasks.
This is the second year that the incoming MBA class has been divided into Learning Teams of five or six students. While study groups have been a fixture of the HBS experience for years, in the past the groups were self-selected and often rather homogeneous. By contrast, Learning Teams are assigned and cross-sectional, taking advantage of the diversity of students in the MBA Program.
“Their fundamental purpose is to serve as enhanced study groups,” explains Professor Jeff Polzer, faculty chair of the Learning Teams Initiative. “These teams foster substantive and intensive interactions among people from different backgrounds and different sections.” Teams play an important role in the educational experience by encouraging more in-depth case analysis and preparation, providing working knowledge of team dynamics, fostering interaction among diverse class members, and enhancing classroom learning.
Learning Teams are also assigned graded projects in several first-year required courses. “By getting to know each other, working closely together, and making joint decisions, the students experience the challenges and benefits of teamwork,” adds Polzer.
