MBA Course Descriptions

Business Communication
B01.2105 1.5 credits
Required for part-time MBA (Langone Program) students
Persuasive communication is a vital component to many aspects of business life. This course introduces the basics of communication strategy and persuasion: audience analysis, communicator credibility, and message construction and delivery. Written and oral presentation assignments derive from cases that focus on communication strategy. Students receive feedback to improve presentation effectiveness. Additional coaching is available for students who want to work on professional written communication. This course is required for all Langone Program students.

Management Communication
B45.2100 1.5 credits
For Full-time MBA 1 students only
In a September 2007 feature, The Wall Street Journal reported that corporate MBA recruiters ranked Communication Skills as the most important attribute they considered when evaluating applicants. Being able to communicate effectively is a vital component to many aspects of business life. This course emphasizes both a strategic and practical approach to provide you with a set of frameworks that will help you construct effective email correspondence, documents and presentations which inform, persuade and influence your audience. The Management Communication course offers you the opportunity to speak and write in a managerial context while receiving personalized feedback and coaching to help develop and sharpen these critical skills.

Communication for Teams and Leaders
B00.2045 1.5 credits
Required for full-time MBA students
This course was created in response to clear messages from recruiters and alumni: successful MBA graduates in today’s diverse and complex marketplace must engage in productive team relationships and possess the ability to lead through strategic communication. Course activities are designed to help you:
Become aware of how you personally work in group settings
Develop specific strategies to foster peak team performance
Enhance your communication and collaborative problem solving skills

Performance Coaching
Professor Diane Lennard
Required for full-time MBA students
MBA1s meet in small group sessions to learn techniques and receive individualized feedback that improves their communication effectiveness and enhances their impact on corporate recruiters.  As a result of this session, students learn techniques for projecting leadership qualities and a professional presence. The three-hour session develops students' interpersonal communication skills essential for success in the competitive job market.

Foundations of Business Coaching
Spring
Professor Diane Lennard
B45.2125.30
This course provides an overview of the principles and practices of business coaching within organizational settings. You will gain a basic knowledge of the coaching process, including how to create the coaching relationship, engage in coaching conversations, and clarify action commitments. You will learn specific strategies and techniques to increase effectiveness when communicating with others, and develop an awareness of your own and others’ communication patterns. We will examine coaching models and the ethics of coaching through readings, reflective writing and class discussions. In addition, you will have first-hand experience coaching and being coached, and will develop your own personalized coaching model. By the end of the course, you will have a working knowledge of how coaching can be used, what coaches need to do to be effective, and the ability to practice the skills of coaching.

Communication for Consultants
Professor Susan Stehlik
B45.3311
Consultants today must be as strategic in their communication as they are in their thinking. Clients expect the consultant to listen well to their perceived needs, engage collaboratively with their staff and ultimately communicate their insights in a manner that leads to some form of change. Managing the communication touchpoints in this process will frequently be the deciding factor for success. In this course, students will take on client engagements coordinated by Stern's NY Initiatives office. Each project will be based in NYC and have an impact on the City. The assignments will require participation from the initial client meeting, through data collection and finally presenting to the client. While the course experience will entail considerable field work, students will be supported by class work that focuses on the communication tools in a typical consulting contract. We'll examine and apply techniques such as brainstorming, conducting interviews, facilitating meetings, building consensus and presenting recommendations. In this way, the course will address communication challenges for consultants and provide a forum for discussing and resolving them. Pre-requisite: B00.2045

Innovative Thinking in a Turbulent Business Envirornment
Professor Aline Wolff
B55.2112
Innovative thinking in our global business environment is no longer the task of a select group of creative strategists – every business leader today needs to understand innovation. This course explores how businesses innovate, and how managers can rewire traditional approaches to finding and developing new opportunities. Every business, regardless of size or function, will be challenged by environmental, social, and global business issues. Learning to recognize and respond to these issues is at the center of this course. We will examine new concepts from the most recent research on design theory and related disciplines, including visual design, neuroscience, communication, rhetoric, linguistics, and business creativity. Topics and exercises will specifically introduce and apply Design Thinking, Bio-mimicry, Visual Thinking, Disruptive Innovation, Business Ethnography and Creative Collaboration. With class discussions and hands-on exercises, this class will focus on how business people can learn to think innovatively and meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

Advanced Topics in Management Communication: Strategies in Persuasion for Financial Services Executives
B45.2103 1.5 credits
Prerequisite (Langone Only): B01.2105
No longer can business professionals rely on strong technical and analytical skills alone. Leaders must also be persuasive and credible communicators. This course, designed for students who are experienced communicators, is built on the concept of a “career life cycle” which blends theoretical models for effective persuasion with practical communications strategies in a simulated business setting. The “life cycle” encompasses a number of individual and group situations that an employee will face during the course of their career. In developing communication strategies we will examine factors impacting a person’s career life cycle such as personal goals, business stresses, corporate situations and environmental events that must be considered to be persuasive and credible in a given situation. Exercises focus on communicating to potential audiences of internal and external parties including colleagues, senior management, clients, competitors and potential business partners. Written and spoken communication assignments range from informative to persuasive in a variety of simulated settings. Situations engage hypothetical audiences involving external “industry experts” that range from receptive to challenging. Strategies and lessons learned in this highly participatory course can be put into action immediately in a student’s daily business and personal environment. Students benefit from individual feedback on all written work as well as individual and team coaching based on video recorded reviews of each presentation.

Advanced Topics in Management Communication:
Communication for the Global Economy
B45.2120 1.5 credits
Prerequisite (Langone Only): B01.2105
As the business world has evolved into 24/7 enterprises around the world, business communication has become intercultural communication. Navigating through unfamiliar cultural expectations and customs is developing into a significant differentiator for management effectiveness. In addition, understanding and working with people from other cultures will grow to be even more essential for organizational strength and sustainability. Communicating effectively in these environments requires a global perspective, which this course provides.
Communication for the Global Economy introduces topics in cross cultural communication to prepare you for the challenges ahead. The course explores the relationships between language, culture and communication in business contexts, and discusses:

• Intercultural dynamics within companies: how does Nestle, for example, convey decisions to all its overseas operations?
• Business structures and corporate culture: how do Japanese regulators communicate with counterparts in different financial markets?
• Non-verbal components: how do Brazilian sales reps handle meetings in Sweden?
• Message organization: how will the current Chinese trade dispute over wireless technology affect telecommunication contracts in the US?

 
Designed for experienced communicators, this course provides multiple opportunities for applying the concepts of cross-cultural communication in presentations and business document assignments. You’ll receive feedback on all deliverables as well as coaching based on your own professional goals. This course will help you become a more effective business communicator while providing insight into a major business issue: communicating successfully in a global economy.

Advanced Topics in Management Communication:
The Performing Manager
B45.2103 1.5 credits
Prerequisite (Langone Only): B01.2105
Effective managers must motivate and inspire others to follow their “lead.” This course will explore the seemingly elusive quality often referred to as personal charisma – that hard to pinpoint ability to not only set a clear direction, but communicate the energy and passion to forcefully engage others in a process.
A variety of performance techniques, borrowed from theater, sports, music, and even stand-up comedy, will be explored to project enthusiasm, manage performance anxiety in presentations and interviews, enhance personal interactions, and facilitate, in Aristotle’s words, “the dynamic unfolding” of the self within you. Specifically, students will participate in improvisations, vocal development exercises, motivational presentation, narratives and visual communication activities. Exercises will focus on the personal vitality necessary to translate vision and concept into action. Examples from film, literature, and business publications will also be discussed.

Advanced Topics in Management Communication:
Persuasive Communication--Selling Ideas and Products
B45.2103 1.5 credits
Prerequisite (Langone Only): B01.2105
Business executives often carefully craft strategies for financing, marketing, hiring, even for exiting a firm or venture. However few invest time also to create a communication strategy. This course, designed for students who are experienced communicators, will blend strategies for effective persuasion with the practicality of successfully communicating new business ventures, initiatives and ideas. Exercises will focus on communicating to potential audiences of investors, venture capitalists, strategic partners, prospective employees, or consumers. Written and spoken communication assignments will range from elevator pitches and informal meetings to formal road shows. Situations will involve hypothetical audiences that range from receptive to difficult. Students will benefit from individual feedback on all written work as well as private coaching based on video taped reviews of each presentation.

Advanced Topics in Management Communication:
Crisis Communication
B45.2121 1.5 credits
Prerequisite (Langone Only): B01.2105
What triggers a crisis and how can an organization respond as it is subjected to the white heat glare of media scrutiny? Firms constantly face risks to reputation and profits as a result of unforeseen events, situations, employee conduct and ethical entanglements. Today, anticipating and reacting to crises is a fundamental duty of senior management. This course examines the relationship between business and the media with special attention to the variables involved in organizational crises. Students develop a perspective for communication with various constituencies, especially employees, shareholders, and the media. Selected topics include issue response and the Internet; managing outside pressure, and communicating and managing during crises. The course features guest speakers from the fields of journalism, corporate communication, and communication consulting. Course work includes readings, case analyses, and oral and written reports.

Advanced Topics in Management Communication:
Corporate Communications and the Capital Markets
B45.2126 1.5 credits
This course will examine, by both theory and case histories, how investors assign value to corporate equities and explain how companies, through their communications, can impact investor attitudes. Financial communication involves a range of activities that concern how organizations manage relations with financial stakeholders.

Business Writing
B00.2099
Pass/Fail
Helps students improve their writing. Required for those who do not achieve a score of 4.0 or above on the writing section of the GMAT and recommended for those who wish to refine their skills. Focuses the writing process, effective style and expression, sentence structure, and business vocabulary. Assignments include letters, memos, reports, and case analyses. The class is conducted as an on-line communication workshop. Students analyze their writing strengths and weaknesses and participate in one-on-one conferences and tutorials. Class size is limited to fifteen students.