Go, fight, win -- but choose your mates carefully

It's 8:45 on a Sunday morning. Each of us is tightly clenching our coffee mugs. We're exhausted from a weekend of studying and part-time jobs, and we're all a bit frustrated at the ungodly hour of the meeting.

Unfortunately, after countless e-mails back and forth among the five-member group, this was the only window everyone had free to work on a marketing presentation due in three days. And we have to hurry up because, in two hours, one of our teammates has another meeting to attend.

Teamwork. It's a crucial part of any MBA program.

And learning how to effectively deal with teams -- from co-ordinating schedules to debating the best format for a presentation to divvying up the workload -- has been one of my most challenging MBA experiences so far.

It's a process that has not only taught me about my own strengths and weaknesses but also about how to interact with others and work as a unit to complete a complicated task.

The thinking among business school deans is that the real world is replete with group projects, so students should get as much experience with teams as possible.

While I was informed of that by MBA grad friends and B-school recruiters, I never realized the actual amount of teamwork I'd have to complete to get my degree. As well, I never realized the complexity involved in getting a team to work at its maximum potential with minimal conflict.

Before classes even began, we were assigned to a five-person group and put through various team-building exercises, such as creating a name, constructing a toy bridge out of a limited number of resources and solving sample business cases.

A few weeks later, during one of our core management classes, a professor spent an entire class discussing those team-building exercises and the concepts of effective group work, citing American educational psychologist Bruce Tuckman's famous theory on teams.

According to Mr. Tuckman, teams go through five stages -- and must master each one before proceeding to the next:

Forming: member selection, getting to know each other;

Storming: debating what needs to be done and how;

Norming: settling into a routine, understanding other members' expertise, listening to each other;

Performing: capitalizing on strengths, getting a task done;

Adjourning: recognizing what's been accomplished, disassembling the group.

As first year continued, there was plenty of other teamwork. Each time, we invariably went through the five stages, trying hard to quickly pass through the forming and storming to spend as much time as possible performing.

All of those team experiences culminated in the forming of my MBA program's most important team of them all -- the "601" group.

At York University's Schulich School of Business, every student must join up with a team of eight people to complete a year-long consulting project (dubbed "601" after its former course code). It's a course that sees students deal as much with their own needs as a client's from an organizational behaviour perspective.

With the 601 teams now formed and the project to last all year long, we have already learned key lessons about group formation and teamwork. Here are some of the standout ones so far:

Pick the team carefully. Ensure your team has a cross-section of expertise, that its members can be trusted to successfully complete the task and, most importantly, that you all get along.

Set expectations right away. What does each member hope to achieve from the project? That was one of the first things the professor overseeing our 601 project asked. When we went around the room, we realized our goals were different. For some, the top priority was a top grade while others wanted to get as much out of the process as they could.

How to resolve? We assembled our individual goals to come up with a team contract that detailed our collective mission, along with details such as how we'll run meetings, communicate with each other and divvy up work -- all of which, we're told, will keep us motivated and on-task for the duration.

Make an agenda for every meeting -- and set a time limit on each item. Members' time is valuable and an agenda with time limits ensures all important issues get dealt with. Meetings without an agenda almost always go off topic and cause frustration.

Deal with conflict face-to-face. If you're going to try to resolve an issue, do it in person: Body language and tone can't be conveyed via e-mail. I've seen problems carry on for days over e-mail but resolve quickly when the parties sat down and talked it out.

Seek outsiders to resolve problems. Don't be afraid to ask for an independent opinion. At Schulich, there is a professor who specializes in solving inner-group conflict and helping teams get through the challenging "storming" phase of development. It's humbling to ask for help but, during a time-constrained project, may be the only logical solution . Of course, both parties have to agree on the mediator, which can trigger another round of debate.

Assign project manager to different tasks. There can be dozens of smaller tasks that need to be completed before the project progresses through its various phases. A project manager for each doesn't do all the work, but instead takes the lead on setting a deadline, organizing the material and arranging schedules. It allows one person with an expertise in a certain area to lead and teach, while at the same time helps those who may not be as confident in the topic to complete the work.

Listen. Enough said.

Richard Bloom is a former Report on Business reporter who has enrolled in York University's Schulich School of Business to obtain an MBA. He will write regularly on the career lessons he is taking away from the classroom.