MBA Professional Development Program hones "soft" skills

Soft skills are the hard target of the MBA Professional Development Program, an innovative facet of this year’s reinvented curriculum created to polish students’ command of written communication, verbal presentation, negotiation, persuasion, team management and leadership.

First-year full-time MBA students are testing version 1.0 of the program that is hardly cast in the conventional academic die. That’s because it came to life via unprecedented coalition of faculty, administrators and employers. The Business School’s active MBA Employer Advisory Board - including recruiters from Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Paccar, Fluke, Deloitte & Touche, Starbucks, Nike, T-Mobile and many others - was instrumental in both articulating the need and designing the solution.

"Technical skills and analytical skills have become almost commodities," said Jennifer Wells (MBA 1997), a vice president at Hitachi Consulting and a member of the MBA Employer Advisory Board. "It’s the leadership and communication and other "soft" skills that are absolutely critical. They are what differentiate a leader from just another manager. And they are skills that all of our organizations need."

The pilot Professional Development Program began before the first day of classes, when each incoming MBA student received a preliminary assessment of his or her writing and speaking ability, then was prescribed a personalized course to hone these skills. This might utilize one-on-one coaching, supplemental coursework, episodic workshops in interviewing, public speaking, even the art of mingling, and seminars with noted experts (including Gene Zelazny, the communication guru of McKinsey & Company).

Quarterly three-day KEEPs (Knowledge and Experience Extension Periods) have immersed first-year MBAs in intensive, interactive seminars on small-group communications and leadership - a hard-working respite from everyday studies. The take-aways from KEEPs can be harnessed immediately in study teams, then from day one of an internship or post-graduate employment in any industry.

And at the end of the academic year, following periodic assessments of the delivery as well as content of course projects, case presentations and written reports, students will receive a hard grade, the ultimate academic stimulus.

"It had to have teeth," recalled Wells.

Professional Development Program director Judith Kalitzki has been pleased by the cooperation of core faculty and the enthusiastic participation by students. "We have been drilling the importance of communication and leadership since day one of Prime Week and the students have really bought into it," she said. "They’re smart enough to know how important these skills are."

The net effect of an MBA program – and its students – responding so decisively to market demands is that elusive win-win-win scenario. This is not lost on Wells and her colleagues on the MBA Employer Advisory Board. "The most satisfying thing for all of us is seeing the positive momentum of this program. The Business School has been proactive in polishing the skill sets of those who already have the abilities and helping to pull up the people who need more help. The end result is consistency around what employers can expect from the program," Wells said, "rather than a training cost that we have to absorb.

"This is a great example of an ongoing, holistic partnership between the Business School and the business community."

To learn more about the UW MBA program, visit: http://bschool.washington.edu/mba