Integrated Business Foundations

I.        Course Description

This is a business foundations course which will provide the opportunity to develop a wide range of professional skills. Career counselors describe the skills you will learn in this course as “transferable skills” capable of enhancing your success in ANY career. That is why this course is described as an ‘integrated’ business course. These transferable skills will help you utilize the disciplinary expertise you acquire in other classes more effectively to influence agendas, create alternatives, and deliver results.

 II. Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Apply skills that will make you a more polished, valuable, and employable professional;
• Contribute effectively in a collaborative environment;
• Understand how to structure and deliver communications that influence others to invest in your professional interests and proposals;
• Analyze ethical dilemmas and regulate your behavior so that you maintain high integrity in your dealings with others;
• Recognize the conditions under which organizational culture strength improves organizational performance;
• Identify influence techniques and understand when and how each should be applied;
• Promote organizational sustainability by recognizing and dealing with conflict in constructive ways;
• Understand the factors which drive change and the reasons people resist change so that you can manage as well as lead change;
• Apply the principled negotiation process to achieve positive outcomes for all involved in conflict situations.

III.   Topics

Week	Module	Content
Week 1	1	Getting Started
Week 2	2	Teamwork
Week 3	3	Communication Clarity
Week 4	4	Effective Presentations
Week 5	5	Leadership
Week 6	6	Difficult Conversations
Week 7	7	Power and Influence
Week 8	8	Data Visualization
Week 9	9	Creative Thinking
Week 10	10	Organization Culture
Week 11	11	Change Management
Week 12	12	Conflict Management
Week 13	13	Negotiations (Part 1)
Week 14	13	Negotiations (Part 2)
Week 15	14	Wrap Up – Final Reflective Presentations