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An MBA Communications Course Designed by Business Executives

Illinois Institute of Technology

Irene Pritzker

University of Chicago

Companies that want to improve the communication skills of their managers might look at the following analysis of suggestions from 136 business managers and executives of the enormously successful and diversified Marmon Group of Companies. Researchers gathered respondents ideas and answers from two questionnaires to produce a quantitative group consensus as to what constitutes the most important areas of focus in business communications.

By the respondents own choices, the course model focuses not on traditionally taught writing skills such as grammar, diction, and paragraph structure, but rather focuses on issues that, from a business point of view, are more urgent in day to day correspondence. For example, executives stressed the need for instructors to train people to write logically, clearly, and briefly, and to concentrate on such judgment skills as audience, tone, relevance, and timeliness.

This desire to shift from traditional emphases opens a new approach to teaching business communications. It implies that there is a much greater need to base courses on real life case studies and to use business people as guest lecturers, since both can illustrate the kind of logical thinking that is necessary to avoid communication problems.

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