Students sharpen speaking skills for boost up the corporate ladder

In this era of e-mail, text messaging and Palm Pilots, it seems as though eloquent speech is in danger of becoming extinct. That’s why the School of Business Administration has teamed with the forensics program in the Lott Leadership Institute to sponsor the annual Speaker’s Edge competition.

“It’s important for students to convey and communicate their messages in a succinct, concise way,” says Dr. John Holleman, director of the MBA program. “In a business setting, most people say that what really counts is how people communicate their ideas.”

MBA students are currently honing their public-speaking skills to prepare for the next competition, set for Jan. 17-20, 2006. The competition, now in its second year, currently involves only Ole Miss students, but organizers hope to expand it to other universities.

Preparation began this fall with Dr. Bobbie Krapels’ Managerial Communication course, which includes a requirement that every student give a five-minute presentation.

“In business, success depends upon communication ability. Being able to organize your points in a way that makes your information more easily understood or being able to develop your proposal in a persuasive manner can be critical for not only the organization but for the individual’s career,” says Krapels, who has been teaching the course since the 1990s.

She feels the Speaker’s Edge competition will greatly benefit the students. “The most important thing most students can gain from Speaker’s Edge, I think, is belief in themselves as speakers. Even though people would rather have a root canal than get up in front of a group of folks to speak, most individuals can become effective speakers with practice,” Krapels says.

JoAnn Edwards, director of forensics in the Lott Leadership Institute, says it’s interesting that competitive public speaking training isn’t available to more executives because competitive communication is part of their jobs. “I see this competition as one way to win back respect and belief in the power of the spoken word,” she said. “I recently read an article that said, ‘You can be the best physicist in the world, but if you can’t tell people what you do or communicate it to your co-workers, what good is all of that knowledge?’ The article went on to say that there is no occupation, short of living in a cave, where being able to say what you think isn’t going to be important, and I agree with that. Words are all we have.”

The January competition will consist of three parts: an 8-10-minute persuasive speech, an 8-10-minute informative speech, and a 7-minute “ethical dilemma,” which gives students a difficult business topic and then 30 minutes to prepare a talk on that topic.

The ethical dilemma section is new to the competition, but fits perfectly with the increased emphasis on ethics in the business community due to recent scandals at companies such as Enron and MCI.

“There’s been a real movement for business schools to address ethical dimensions. We teach the financial and quantitative analysis part of things, but there is an incredible need for business school students, particularly MBA students, to have an understanding of ethics issues,” said Holleman.

Before the competition begins in January, two speakers will visit the Oxford campus to bring that message home. David Callahan, author of The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead, (Harcourt, December 2004) and Walt Pavlo, a former MCI senior manager, will give the students a real-world perspective on ethics.

Callahan’s book examines why otherwise honest people bend or break the rules to get ahead in life—academically, professionally and financially. Pavlo, who holds an engineering degree and an MBA, became involved in a $6 million fraud scheme at MCI and went to federal prison. He will try to impress upon the MBA students how unethical behavior can undermine—and even end—their careers.

Holleman hopes that listening to Callahan and Pavlo will give the students a sense of empowerment when it is their turn to speak on the topic.

Until then, Edwards is coaching the MBA students on effective public speaking with help from University of Mississippi alum Randy Harrington (BA 81), founder and CEO of Extreme Arts & Sciences, a corporate communications and information technology consulting firm, and Ty Warren, founder and CEO of W-3 Communications, a corporate communications firm in Birmingham, Ala.

Judging from students’ comments after the February 2005 Speaker’s Edge competition, their efforts are paying off.

“In the end I feel more confident in my speaking ability, and I feel like it will be beneficial to my job interviewing,” said Hart Pettit. “It’s one of those things that you have to drag us kicking and screaming into, but it is worth it in the end.”—Rebecca Lauck Cleary BF