Toughening Up Those Soft Skills
Area MBA programs are focusing more attention on communications and networking.

When Dave Smith was in charge of the Arizona small business development centers, he repeatedly met would-be entrepreneurs who had wonderful ideas but couldn’t get their products to market.

“The people with the money expect entrepreneurs to have the skills to effectively communicate the benefits and the needs that product or service will satisfy,” said Smith, now head of the MBA program at the University of Saint Mary’s Overland Park center.  

Communications isn’t rocket science, but for many entrepreneurs, it may as well be. That is why area universities are beefing up their MBA programs with soft skills, infusing leadership training, communications and networking into all business courses to better mimic the real world.

The University of Missouri - Kansas City’s Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration has overhauled its Executive MBA program based on research that showed there are a core group of competencies that leaders need to be successful. Some of those are the traditional business skills that have long been covered in MBA programs. The others are soft skills: building networks and collaboration; influence and communication; and self-assessment and development.

Self-Awareness
“People don’t understand why they aren’t more effective in networking and relationships, but it boils down to lack of good self-awareness,” said Doranne Hudson, executive-in-residence and visiting instructor at the Bloch School.

In response to the research, the Bloch School has developed the Leadership Growth Program with Right Management Consultants. The assessment consists of 360 degree feedback from peers, subordinates and supervisors. Students then work with an executive coach from Right Management, setting personal goals based on the results. At the end of the program, they will do another assessment to gauge their improvement.

“It’s not an easy process to hear your peers say you are lacking in certain areas,” said Dr. Karyl Leggio, executive director of the Bloch School Executive MBA program. “But understanding how to improve in those areas is critical.”

Each student has their own roadmap, explained Beverly Stewart, Bloch School EMBA director of marketing. She said faculty use the general information to address issues that will benefit the entire class; and now students also can benefit from an on-site executive coach focused on communication and interpersonal skills.

The Bloch School has brought in Sandra Kruse-Smith, owner of Synergy consulting company, to help students reach their goals, both on an individual basis, through teams and sometimes through the entire class. Kruse-Smith talks to students about having a professional presence and how to be noticed, as well as how to develop poise, and how to interact gracefully with people in a room.

“Entrepreneurs are used to running everything themselves,” Kruse-Smith said. “I teach them how to be effective in a group while keeping the best of themselves, which is critical.”

At the University of St. Mary, the first course for MBA students is Organizational Management, which provides an in-depth examination of the social system and influence of motivation, effect of work outcomes, emergent leadership and control of behavior in the workplace.

Dave Smith said a recent buzzword in the workplace and in higher education is “emotional intelligence:” empathy, motivation, feelings and understanding your own reactions to situations. He said emotional intelligence also is about understanding other people’s feelings and how to stimulate them and knowing when to express your feelings and exert your influence.

“It’s having a vision and being able to bring others on board,” Smith said.

Cohort Groups
Many MBA programs are encouraging students to learn through group interaction. These cohort groups form the structure of the MBA program at Baker University. Each participant in the program is assigned to a group, which stays together the entire 22 months, said Jeff Driskill, director of enrollment management. Each group is required to produce a project determined by the course curriculum.

“Those projects are designed to be larger than one person can accomplish,” Driskill said. “So it forces them to divide responsibilities and ensure accountability to themselves and to the team. Teams can’t be successful if team members don’t work together efficiently.”

Driskill added that the teams are self-governed. They set up a constitution that spells out how the group is going to complete the program successfully; when and how they are going to meet; and the consequences if expectations are not being met. All members sign off on the constitution.

Cohort groups are also a key component of the Bloch School’s EMBA program.

“The team dynamic becomes important,” Stewart said. “How you communicate with the group, how you persuade and influence team members and how you deal with conflict resolution. A big part of your grade is based on the group’s ability to perform as a team.”

Networking
Part of the benefit of these teams is that the members get to network and learn from each other’s strengths. To enhance that, the Bloch School recruits students with varied backgrounds—those in the not-for-profit sector, entrepreneurs and executives from a wide variety of industries.

“That’s where the learning occurs, Leggio said. “We don’t let one company send more than three people, and better than a third of the people in the program come from smaller businesses.”

Bloch EMBA students also have the opportunity to network with EMBA graduates when the school brings in guest speakers at special events.

Not only can students network within their teams, but they also can benefit from their entire class. The 15 to 21 students are going to have job and life experiences the others can draw from. The average person has been on the job full time from seven to nine years, said Driskill.

Driskill said Baker University uses adjunct faculty who are in the real world working in their respective fields, and so provide good networking opportunities.

Leadership
James Klanke, Bloch EMBA class of 2007, owns a management consulting company. One of the things he likes about the Bloch School EMBA program is the emphasis on leadership. He said it is woven into all of the curriculum areas, including understanding leadership in marketing and finance.

“It’s subtle and indirect sometimes, but you can tell it’s there,” Klanke said. “You begin to understand the relationship between each piece and can apply that understanding to real-life situations.”

In finance classes, for example, someone will present the numbers to you, and then you have to decide whether the project is worth taking, Leggio said. You have to ask the right questions.

“We are teaching students to think in strategic ways, sifting through all the data and pulling out what’s important to pay attention to,” Leggio said.

The University of St. Mary is offering two new elective courses covering soft skills during its intersession (December through January). One is a leadership course. The other is called Work Styles and Generations in the Work Place, which covers techniques of motivation and priorities for different age groups.

“Seven out of 10 people in the workplace today terminate because of conflict with the immediate supervisor,” Smith said. “This usually is from a lack of empathy, and the manager needs to deal with that because replacing employees is costly.”

Communication
An important part of the leadership package is communication. To address that, Baker University incorporates presentations and writing into every course. It’s important for students to know how to present information to an audience, whether that is potential investors, potential customers or potential employees, Driskill said.

Stewart said the Bloch School program teaches participants to speak and communicate in such a way that people want to listen to them.

“We help them improve the clarity of their message and how they deliver it,” Stewart said. “They work on how they position and organize facts—both in writing in formal presentations, as well as informal discussions.”

Many Bloch EMBA participants are people who had succeeded because they had good technical expertise, Leggio said. The program takes that engineer or financial person to the next level to gain a broad understanding of many topics and have the presence and capability to communicate with people two or three levels below them.

Works in Progress
The MBA programs are becoming more powerful tools for entrepreneurs, but they are a work in progress. Driskill said that although Baker University has included communications skills in its MBA curriculum for several years, they continually tweak the program. They took out the dissertation piece several years ago because they found that research writing is an academic exercise, not the type of writing that is necessary in the corporate world.
Meanwhile, the Bloch School also is working on the next phase of its MBA evolution.

“We started with EMBA program and are just getting started on the MBA,” Hudson said. “The main principles, such as enhancing self awareness, are likely to be applicable to the MBA, and we’re looking at integrating that.”

Part of that evolution is coming up with ways to involve the alumni. The alumni are demanding so much that the school has one person devoted solely to EMBA alumni programs, Leggio said. One such possibility is a one-year refresher course.

“EMBA participants are truly lifelong learners,” Leggio said.

Ellen Jensen is the managing editor of Kansas City Small Business Monthly magazine.