Persuasive Communication: Critical Thinking to Enhance Your Message

An online course focused on interpersonal skills for today’s professionals. MIT Professional Education’s online course Persuasive Communication aims to help participants hone their interpersonal skills in vital areas such as public speaking, critical thinking, digital communication, visual persuasion, and audience adaptation both virtually and in person. This course is geared towards professionals who need to convey their ideas with precision, pitch projects, speak at events or presentations, or conduct interviews as an integral part of their careers.

This course is designed to refine participants’ communication and interpersonal skills, allowing clear, precise information to be delivered in an effective and persuasive manner. It also aims to guide highly skilled technical professionals to adapt their message to a non-technical audience. The skills and knowledge presented in this program can be applied across multiple industries, including engineering, tech, human resources, sales, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, among others. Due to its extensive application and the increasing need for universally effective communication, the expertise on offer can also be of great value in participants’ own personal lives.

Persuasive Communication: Critical Thinking to Enhance Your Message, with curriculum developed and taught by MIT faculty, is delivered in collaboration with Global Alumni. Contact Global Alumni for more information about this program:

• professionalprograms@mit.edu or 
• call:+1 617 870 0270 USA  .

Global Alumni is an ed-tech company that collaborates with institutions to manage enrollments (including all payment services and invoicing), technology, and participant support. 

This program aims to guide highly skilled technical professionals to adapt their message to a non-technical audience. Other significant learning outcomes include:

• Learn about disparate communication styles and how they influence attitudes and behaviors
• Discover the psychology behind persuasion and implement it in your own professional interactions
• Understand which characteristics make a great public speaker and learn to apply them to yourself
• Master how to adapt your message to different audiences, including those with differing levels of technical knowledge
• Explore the impact of digitalization in communication and learn to manage virtual communications in an effective, powerful manner
• Find out which processes are behind critical thinking and how to use them to upgrade your message
• Comprehend the importance of data visualization to clarify your data for any kind of audience
• Devise a communication strategy for your organization

Professionals with diferent expertise and backgrounds may benefit from this program, including: 

• C-level executives wanting to improve both vertical and horizontal communication to ensure that objectives are aligned throughout their organization. 
• Engineers and other technical professionals who need to communicate with those from non-technical backgrounds, as well as people without technical knowledge who need to communicate with engineers and other tech professionals. 
• Any professional looking to enhance their critical thinking skills by constructing and evaluating claims and arguments that can be confidently presented to persuade others within their organization and beyond it. 
• Business leaders who need to deliver data and information across a variety of media channels to diverse audiences. 
• Sustainability and climate change specialists looking to strengthen their arguments in person, virtually, and with supporting data. 
• Entrepreneurs and other dynamic professionals who rely on effective communication to turn their ideas into actionable plans for presentation.