Today in this blog post – I am trying to answer a common question that is being frequently asked to me by my management students, young aspiring executives, and entrepreneurs. The common questions being asked by these young males and females are:
• How do we prepare ourselves for the corporate world where we are going to spend the rest of our lives?
• How do we become effective and smart business managers in today’s business environment?
• What attributes and/or qualities we should have to become successful as an employed executive or as an entrepreneur/intrapreneur?
Whereas these questions may, prima facie, appear to be different, these point towards the same answer. Here, I am making an earnest effort to answer this crucial question in the succeeding paragraphs:
Reinventing Yourself
What you are?… What do you know?… And what you can do? What is your eventual professional goal – where do you want to reach in your career? What do you want from your job and/or life? Do self-introspection. Articulate your dream. Do your SWOT analysis to find your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For this, you must scan your internal as well as external environment. Formulate your strategic plan, goals, and objectives. And finally – work on the implementation of your plans under the guidance of your mentor.
Realize Your Organization’s Vision
Stick to your and your organization’s long-term vision and values. Your individual goals and your organizational goals must be aligned – that is important. Be firm and strict in realizing this vision but be flexible when you are implementing your decisions to accomplish this vision. In other words – your long-term vision is firm and non-negotiable, but you are flexible in pursuing the path that takes you there – flexible in terms of your approach towards deployment of all your resources and your general style of management. While you are working with your team on the fructification of your enterprise’s tunnel vision – you should also walk an extra mile to enhance the emotional quotient and happiness quotient of your team members.
Be Effective first, then Efficient
As a corporate executive or a business manager – you shall like to give your best to your organization. This will require that you are effective as well as efficient in your job. Being effective will mean that you set your priorities right and do the right things at the right time. On the other hand, being efficient will mean that you can accomplish your organizational goals by deploying all physical, financial, human, and informational resources in optimal measures. Here, let us not forget that being effective is more important than being efficient. An ideal business manager will be effective first and efficient thereafter. In other words – while effective means doing the right things, efficient will mean doing things right.
Work on Your Communication Skills
Another important requirement for you to succeed in your corporate journey is being very good (if not excellent) in personal as well as business communication. Effective communication is crucial to a business manager’s personal as well as professional life. A large part of our waking time is spent communicating. However, we do not give thought to most of the communication unless it involves a critical business issue or when something goes wrong. Every communication is essential, however insignificant it may seem, especially in the workplace. The communication may be as simple as sending a text message to a colleague requesting data or preparing a lengthy technical report – with proper planning and care both types of communication can be made more effective.
Your Body Language
Apart from mastering your verbal and written communication, you must pay attention to your non-verbal communication skills which we also refer to as body language. These include your posture/gait, power of your handshake, eye contact, and other soft skills (many professional colleges are teaching these soft skills as a part of their curriculum).
To understand and master the art and science of communication, I suggest that you read about 5 Ws and 1 H of communication (What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How).
Your Domain Knowledge
You also must possess good functional knowledge in the field of your specialization together with an appreciation of available resources (including the scarce ones), proven processes and technologies in your professional domain. To achieve this goal, you must engage in regular reading, talking to many domain experts, and attending professional events like trade fairs, exhibitions, webinars and seminars. In other words – you will do well to build a learning and growth environment around you and your colleagues in the organization. This will additionally require building libraries, positioning experts and mentors in your organization, and building a strong intranet.
Your Overall Personality
To build an attractive personality – you should also try to practice speaking and writing with due economy of words – I call this ‘brevity in your expression’. Apart from efficiency in action, and brevity in expression, you should also develop firmness in your decisions, courtesy in behaviour, and tact in handling delicate and sensitive situations. You may also like to work on your listening skills, negotiation skills and problem-solving skills. Building all the skills will require time and effort and active engagement with knowledgeable and experienced people in your contact sphere – but rest assured, you will reap great dividends later in life.
Like I always remind you- this list is not exhaustive. I have written this from my experience. If you think I have missed something essential that you think must be included in this, then do let me know in the comments below!
Beautifully summarizes everything a management professional needs to know.