How Are B-Schools Teaching Soft Skills?

Soft skills are taking over b-schools.

Emma Jacobs, a writer at Financial Times, recently reported how b-schools are using soft skills to prepare MBAs for a market that has placed increasing emphasis on problem-solving, teamwork, and networking. 

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills, according to The Balance Careers, are “personal attributes, personality traits, inherent social cues, and communication abilities needed for success on the job. Soft skills characterize how a person interacts in his or her relationships with others.”

And they’re highly in demand. According to FT’s 2018 Skills Gap, a survey of MBA grads and over 70 global leading employers, soft skills were rated “most important” by 54% and 64% of respondents respectively.

How B-Schools Are Teaching Soft Skills

At London Business School, an “interpersonal dynamics” course is a big step towards teaching MBAs soft skills.

Through theory and team exercises, students in the course develop key attributes such as self-awareness and mindfulness, according to FT.

Richard Jolly, an adjunct professor of organizational behavior at LBS, says the course is structured off of feedback from the school’s careers center.

“Recruiters say students were not self-aware,” Jolly tells FT. “They said they are arrogant [and] don’t listen.”

Jolly says he hopes the course can help students develop their careers.

“As you become more senior all you do is relationships,” he tells FT. “When you’re in the boardroom you’re not doing Excel. Just building relationships.”

At Stanford Graduate School of Business, a course called “Interpersonal Dynamics” aims to help students develop and forge strong relationships with others.

The course, nicknamed “Touchy Feely,” has been voted the most popular elective for 45 years, according to the business school’s website.

Students in the course work in 12-person teams that meet regularly during the week with two faculty members. The teams work on reading and lecture topics and partake in a weekend retreat that consists of 16 hours of group work, according to FT.

A big component of the course? Personal feedback.

Animesh Agrawal, a student of the course, says the personal feedback component of the course was critical.

“In real life it is very hard to get very specific [comments] on how your actions land with others,” Agrawal tells FT.

While not all the personal feedback given in the course is positive, negative feedback can often be more helpful in the long run.

“It’s not the gift you want but it’s the gift you need,” Jolly, of LBS, tells FT. “So often in organizations there are things that people talk about behind your back that they don’t say to your face.”

Sources: Financial Times, The Balance Careers, Financial Times