Learning Teams
PSI learning teams are study groups that bring people together with different backgrounds (industry and/or geographic) and different goals. These teams provide new students with the experience of learning how to manage diverse groups of people and how to leverage complementary skills and talents.
Each learning team creates a charter that outlines the team's goals and establishes principles for working together most effectively. Soon after joining, members discuss their mission statement, strengths, areas for improvement, potential pitfalls, best practices and logistics.
A recent learning team member reported:
We had to be creative about using 'virtual meetings' and leveraging email and similar tools. Having a well thought out team charter that respected the differing goals of each team member was also very important in setting expectations early on.
See this learning team's charter for more details.
PSI: Leading Teams
This stream of Program on Social Intelligence activities focuses on helping Columbia Business School MBA students get the most out of their learning team experience. It comprises several sessions on teamwork during orientation led by faculty members, external experts and second-year MBA peer advisors. It culminates in a session with each learning team one month later. The frameworks and techniques imparted in these sessions are relevant, more broadly, to managing effectively in project teams, partnerships, networks and other nonhierarchical settings.
Building Trust
Orientation September 2006
Using Teamwork
Orientation September 2006
