For example, Gersick studied one group of business students given eleven days to analyze a case and prepare an explanatory paper. The teammates dickered and bickered at first and resisted outside advice. But on day six of their work—the precise midpoint of their project—the issue of timing parachuted into the conversation. “We’re very short on time,” warned one member. Shortly after that comment, the group abandoned its unpromising initial approach and generated a revised strategy that it pursued to the end. At the halfway mark in this team and the others, Gersick wrote, members felt “a new
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