Team Dynamics: some quick tips
Team Dynamics, this time on the Supreme Court: a lot of b school essays, in one way or the other, ask you capture some team dynamic, and what role you played. Many kids applying to b school lack the vocabulary or emotional intelligence to do this smartly. Folks, it aint hard, and as w. much leadership analysis, esp. at the level needed for apps., mostly common sense will do: below is Jeff Tobins analysis of who is successful on one team, The US Supreme Court. You could almost plagiarize this, apply it to the nerds on your team, add some similar semi-bs, and have a great answer, to many app. questions.
For that matter, Mr. Toobin reveals in this book just how much personality shapes interactions on the court and sometimes determines the direction of debate. It’s well known, of course, that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor shared a long friendship that predated their arrival on the court, but Mr. Toobin also reveals that she formed a close bond with Justice Breyer, with whom she shared a practical, pragmatic outlook. He tells us that David Souters “gentle charm” probably made him “the best liked of the justices among his peers.” He tells us that Justice Kennedy’s travels abroad and his interest in international law pushed him to the left over the years. And he tells us that Justice Scalia never learned to translate his moxie into real influence on the court, while Justice Breyer, who’d “watched his former boss Ted Kennedy push legislation through the Senate” by building coalitions, knew how to work his colleagues decorously, respectfully but unmistakably to try to get them to see things his way.
from SK’s fav book reviewer (well, 85 percent of the time) M. Kakutani, in
Power Lineup, Swings From Right By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
THE NINE–Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
By Jeffrey Toobin
Illustrated. 369 pages. Doubleday. $27.95.
