Research indicates that skills in listening to and motivating people need to be emphasized more in undergraduate business communication courses. Three theories of motivation--Maslow's hierarchy of needs, McClelland's achievement motive, and Hersberg's motivation-hygiene theory--can introduce students to the systems perspective, an approach suggesting that workers' motivations can only be understood in relationship to their work setting. To develop skill in listening, students must develop active feedback techniques: encouraging, restating, reflecting, and summarizing. By responding to hypothetical examples, students can gain skill in listening and thus in changing people's need for sympathy, fame, power, and prestige into positive motivational factors--desire for empathy, recognition, cooperation, and respect. (HOD)