So what are the simple things that need to be right? I shall list five. First, MBA teaching requires painstaking preparation. Students want all the slides, cases, web references, readings, assignment details, past exam papers - everything, indeed - in advance. We put all this material in a coursebook handed out in lecture 1. It may not seem like a big deal, and indeed it isn't, really, but it does make an extraordinarily big difference. One MBA student put this very succinctly on the feedback form:

"Course handouts + workbook + preparedness = excellent!"
Second, don't "teach to the textbook" - unless, of course, it is a text you have written yourself. My experience is that MBAs do not like it at all when faculty teach straight from a text. The reason is clear enough. The MBAs expect, as an absolute minimum, that faculty will bring their own experience and expertise to the classroom. This way they know they are getting something that is unique, and which they would not get anywhere else. To mimic a textbook is to add no value at all.

Of course, those who produce all their own material but use a textbook as a backup may sometimes say things that contradict what is in the textbook. MBA students, like any others, prefer not to encounter such contradictions. But this is a much lesser sin than mimicking the text.

The third detail is topicality. I remember once being gently mocked by a friend from the City of London when he found me reading a Financial Times from the previous week. For him, of course, there could be no market relevant information in yesterday's FT - let alone one that was a week old. The life cycle for materials used with MBA students is not quite so short. But a useful rule of thumb is that last year's case may now be out of date. Even if an old case illustrates your point perfectly, it is generally interpreted as a bad signal to leave old material in a coursebook. Having said that, MBA students can be surprisingly ambivalent about references to recent materials on the web. They like the "up to the minute" flavour which web references seem to imply, but MBA students still seem to work, primarily, in a paper culture.

The fourth detail concerns intellectual modesty. Some may be surprised to read this, believing that neither teacher nor student is likely to be intellectually modest in the MBA classroom. But my point is a little different.

MBA students, as we have seen, come from a diverse range of backgrounds. Those with a background in the hard sciences don't tend to be too impressed with any of the social sciences, not even economics. And those with a business background often argue that, to paraphrase, "the real world is not like your simple economic models". As a result, the MBA teacher should be very cautious about claiming too much for economic theory in this audience. In particular, it is very hazardous to make any statements like, "economic theory shows this must happen", or, "economic theory shows that can't happen". For example, if the MBA student points to a particular economic phenomenon and is met with a response from the tutor, "economic theory shows that cannot happen", then an audience of this sort can react very badly. I am reminded of Dr Johnson's angry response on hearing Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter. Kicking out at a stone, he shouted, "I refute it thus!"