Faculty
Objectives
COURSE GOALS
Management, by definition, is achieving results with and through other people. Therefore, all of the technical and analytical skills in the world are useless unless you can communicate—that is, explain, persuade, and collaborate with others either by writing, interacting one-on-one, or presenting to a group.
In this course, we are targeting a key aspect of managerial communication: persuasive presentation skills. By the end of this course, you will improve your ability to:
"Sell" yourself and your ideas to others.
Develop a more effective and adaptable communication strategy, such as enhancing your credibility and aligning your objectives with those of your audience.
Perfect your ability to grab and retain audience interest and understanding through how you structure what you say.
Enhance your PowerPoint skills so your slides will be understood and will lead to your desired outcome.
Improve your nonverbal delivery skills, so that both your body language and vocal traits align with the image you seek to project.
Requirements
Materials
COURSE PEDAGOGY
The teaching and learning method used in this course is significantly different from that of your other core courses. There will be no lectures, no problem sets, and no one right answer.
Course content: book, not lecture. In a way, you could say that the two textbooks (Guide to Managerial Communication and Guide to PowerPoint for Version 2007) represent the sum-total of our knowledge, based on our collective sixty years in both the business and academic worlds. However, reading a paragraph about "effective eye contact" is easy; what is difficult is getting up in front of an audience and receiving feedback about how your eye contact was perceived or what possible strategies to connect more effectively with your audience.
Course methods: experiential and collaborative. You will learn—not by striving for one right answer or by defending one point-of-view—but rather by doing and by interacting with your classmates as well as your professors. We expect you will come to class having fully internalized the readings and applied them as best you can to the assignment—but also with an open and receptive mind to receiving both instructor and peer feedback, seeking to enhance your own ideas and to coach and collaborate with others.
Course meetings: large group, then small group. To facilitate experiential learning, each topic will be taught twice: we will discuss each communication concept in the large-group sessions; then, in the small-group sessions the next day, you will have the opportunity to practice and improve your skills in that concept area. For example, a large-group class session will discuss what the research tells us about various slide design issues; the small-group session will allow you to improve your own individual slides. Small-group sessions will be more like workshops—providing speaking opportunities, collaborative work, and individual feedback.
In short, the teaching method is based on:
Before class: (1) internalize ideas from the readings and (2) apply those ideas to the homework assignment.
During class: (3) discuss and give feedback to your peers, (4) receive feedback and enhance your homework answers, and (5) turn in your enhanced homework.
COURSE POLICIES
Honor Code: We affirm the Tuck Honor Code and trust you to behave honorably. All before-class assignments (except the Fletcher case) and the final presentation in this course are individual: no one else is to read, listen to, comment on, proofread, or even type anything for you before class.
Social Code: We affirm the Tuck Social Code and trust you to behave professionally and respectfully. All in-class activities in this course are collaborative: your job is to give and receive feedback, coaching, and tutoring with an open and generous mind and respectful demeanor. This includes no laptops in class, except during Session 4.
Coaching/Tutoring: After any assignment has been turned in, we encourage you to use any peer coaching or tutoring after class if you wish to further your learning and develop your skills.
Attendance Policy: We affirm the Tuck Attendance Policy and assume you will prepare for and attend all large- and small-group classes.
- Excused absences: In case of emergency, illness, or religious holidays, please contact your professor for that day plus Sally Jaeger in the MBAPO. In these cases, you will be allowed to make up the work for full credit.
- Absences discussed in advance: For other absences (such as social- or job-related), please discuss them in advance with your professor for that day. You will be expected to turn in the assignment on time, but due to your lack of class participation, you will receive only half credit for that assignment. We urge you to remember that your absence will also affect your fellow students, because they will lose the opportunity for your peer feedback.
- Absences not discussed in advance: If you miss class without having discussed it in advance, you will receive zero credit for the day. In these cases, late assignments are not accepted.
Grading
FEEDBACK AND GRADING
Feedback: During this course, we focus on feedback rather than grading. We think of feedback as coaching—and strive to maintain an atmosphere in which both professors and fellow students are constantly helping to improve others' skills, without regard to how "good" or "bad" they are. Your learning and improvement in this course will correlate directly to the amount of effort you put into giving and receiving feedback.
Grading: At the end of the course, however, we will evaluate each of you with a grade. Just as in all of your other courses, your grade will be based solely on your performance; for the final grade, neither effort nor improvement counts.
Your grade in ManComm is based on the following 120-point scale:
60.......Homework and class participation (based on what you prepare in advance and what you annotate during class) as follows:
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Session 1: Fletcher memo (10 points)
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Session 2: Notecard (5 points)
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Session 3: Slide Master, version 1 (10 points)
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Session 4: Slide Master, version 2 (10 points)
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Session 6: Visual aids exercise (10 points)
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Sessions 5 and 7: Self-analysis of both impromptus (15 points)
60......Final exam: Individual persuasive presentation:
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Strategy (20 points)
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Structure and visual aids (20 points)
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Nonverbal delivery (20 points)
Schedule
11/04/2008 (Barclay)
WEEK 1: PERSUASIVE STRATEGY AND STRUCTURE
Session 1: Case Discussion of Persuasive Strategy and Structure
Readings:
Read Guide to Managerial Communication (GMC), 7th edition, chapter 1.
Read the Fletcher Electronics case (course packet).
Read “Persuasion: What the Research Tells Us” (course packet).
Questions: With your study group, prepare answers to all of the following questions for class discussion. The purpose of the study group discussion should be to air all opinions, not to reach a group consensus.
Communicator strategy: What was Van Dyke’s objective? What management style did he use? What management style do you think he should have used? How would you analyze his credibility in this situation? How would you have enhanced your credibility if you had been Van Dyke?
Audience strategy: Who was Van Dyke’s audience? Who would you have included as an audience? How did he try to appeal to them in his letter? What specific technique(s) would you have used?
Message strategy: How did Van Dyke structure his letter? How would you have structured it? How would you describe the tone? What tone would you have adopted?
Channel choice strategy: What channel(s) of communication would you have used?
Turn in: You are a communication consultant hired by Mr. VanDyke at the beginning of the case; he has not yet communicated anything about his procurement process changes. Write him a one-page memo outlining the strategy he should use to achieve his desired outcome. The memo should clearly incorporate answers to the eight italicized questions above. (Hard copy, single-spaced, double-spaced between paragraphs, 12 point font, regular margins, no cover sheets, please.) This memo is an individual effort, as are all other before-class assignments in this class.
Optional: Feel free to refer to GMC, chapters 3 and 4. Even though the memo will be graded on only strategy and structure, effective writing usually correlates with effective analysis.
11/05/2008 & 11/06/2008
Session 2: Practice Session on Strategy and Structure (See Small-Group Session Schedule)
Read/prepare:
Read GMC, chapter 5, pages 87-92.
Prepare a three-minute recruiting presentation (without visuals) on behalf of a company, organization, or college you know well. Bring your outline on a 4x6 inch unlined notecard. Cards are available in front of Tuck office 205. Your notecard will be graded on the guidelines described in GMC, pages 87-92. Remember to: (1) use one card for about 5 minutes of speaking, (2) include a grabber and preview, and (3) number your main points only, so they parallel the preview.
Read "How to Improve Your Feedback Skills" (course packet). Practice these important managerial skills in this class and in all of the subsequent classes.
Turn in: Your annotated notecard
11/12/2008 (Stoneman)
WEEK 2: PERSUASIVE SLIDE MASTERS AND NONVERBAL DELIVERY
Session 3: Persuasive Slide Masters: What To Do
Read/prepare:
Read GMC, chapter 6, pages 109-120.
Read Guide to PowerPoint (GtoPPt), chapters 3 and 4 (Slide Master Design).
Prepare an imaginary short presentation (about six to twelve slides) persuading your audience to pursue some kind of growth opportunity (e.g., introducing a new product or service or expanding a current product or service into a new geographical area, etc.). For your audience, you may choose your previous employer or another employer you know well or would like to work for. The idea is to come up with a meaty presentation with data and numbers, but to devote your efforts to designing your slides, not to doing a lot of original research. You will not actually deliver this presentation; the exercise centers on PowerPoint skills.
Prepare from scratch a brand-new Slide Master/template; do not just lift one from your files. This Slide Master should meet all of the criteria from the three chapters in the two books.
Using the Slide Master you have designed, create a short imaginary presentation (on the topic explained in point 3, above) which includes: (1) a title slide, (2) an agenda slide, (3) some backup slides, (4) some method(s) for connection between the agenda and the backup slides, (5) a closing slide, (6) effective color (including an accent color),
(7) readable font, and (8) message titles on all of the slides.
Turn in: Hard copy of the slide show—printed in color, six-per-page
11/12/2008 & 11/13/2008
Session 4: Persuasive Structure and Slide Master: How To Do It (See Small-Group Session Schedule)
Read/prepare:
Create an improved version of the Slide Master you designed for Session 3.
Bring your laptop to provide peer feedback and to improve your own slides during this workshop session.
Turn in: Email your improved slide show to Professor Blackburn or Lang by 5 pm Friday, November 14 (not a class session). Insert your group number and last name as the subject line—e.g., 50 Jones.
11/13/2008 (Stoneman)
Session 5: Large-Group Impromptus to Assess Nonverbal Delivery Skills To give everyone a chance to speak, class will run 15 minutes longer than usual, from
8:15-10:00 and 10:20-12:05.
Read/prepare: None due today.
In-class: Impromptu presentations on randomly selected topics in front of the entire class; you do not need to prepare a presentation. These impromptus, along with your small-group impromptu, will be recorded for you to view after class and to analyze for the assignment due Nov. 25.
Turn in: None due today. See assignment “Self Analysis of Impromptus,” and “Template for Self Analysis of Impromptus”(both in the course packet and the course folder) due Tues., Nov. 25 (not a class session).
11/20/2008 (Stoneman)
WEEK 3: PERSUASIVE POWERPOINT: INDIVIDUAL SLIDES
Session 6: Discussion of Individual Charts & Graphs
Read/prepare:
Review GMC, pages 121-129.
Based on the Visual Aids Exercise (course packet and course folder), prepare six (or eight for extra credit) PowerPoint slides.
Turn in: Hard copy of six to eight PowerPoint slides, printed in color, two-per-page, based on the Visual Aids Exercise.
11/19/2008 & 11/20/2008
Session 7: Small-Group Impromptus to Assess Nonverbal Delivery Skills (See Small-Group Session Schedule)
Read/prepare: Be prepared to give extensive peer feedback on nonverbal skills by reading:
GMC, pages 103 and 140-151;
"How to Improve Your Feedback Skills” (course packet),
The blue peer feedback form (course packet). Familiarize yourself with all of the terms on this form.
In class: Impromptu persuasive presentations on randomly selected topics; you do not need to prepare a presentation. When you are not speaking, you will be filling out a blue peer feedback form for each speaker. These impromptus, along with your large-group impromptus, will be recorded for you to view after class and analyze as a part of the assignment due Nov. 25.
Turn in: None due today. See assignment, “Self Analysis of Impromptus,” (course folder) due on Tues., Nov. 25.
11/25/2008
NOT A CLASS SESSION- TURN IN
Turn in: "Self Analysis of Impromptus," due before 5pm to the box outside Tuck 205. This one-page memo is a self-analysis of your nonverbal strengths and weaknesses. You will be graded on the quality of your Self Analysis only, not on your impromptu speaking skills themselves.
12/06/2008
FINAL EXAM
The final exam will consist of a three- to five-minute individual presentation on a topic to be announced. It will be graded on persuasive (1) strategy, (2) structure, (3) visuals/PowerPoint, and (4) nonverbal delivery.
All members of two study groups will present during the same one-hour session. At your assigned time (see attached schedule), you will deliver your presentation and fill out a blue peer feedback form for each speaker.
Practice rooms will be available for you to rehearse your presentation in advance.
