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Showing posts with the label Successful Management

How to Improve Your Finance Skills (Even If You Hate Numbers)

If you’re not a numbers person, finance is daunting. But having a grasp of terms like EBITDA and net present value are important no matter where you sit on the org chart. How can you boost your financial acumen? How do you decide which concepts are most important to understand to your work and your understanding of the business? And who’s in the best position to offer advice? What the Experts Say Even if you don’t need to know a lot about finance to do your day-to-day job, the more conversant you are on the subject, the better off you’ll be, according to Richard Ruback, a professor at Harvard Business School and the coauthor of the  HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business . “If you can speak the language of money, you will be more successful,” he says. After all, if you’re trying to sell a product or strategy, you need to be able to demonstrate that it is both practical and high margin. “The decision-makers will want to see a simple model that shows revenue, costs, overhead, and

11 Ways Successful People Deal With People They Don't Like

Everyone has to interact with someone they don't get along with every once in a while, so be prepared the next time it happens to you. It’s inevitable that you’ll encounter people with whom you disagree. There are some people you instantly  click with  and others you can take or leave. And then, there are the select few you  just can’t stand ! How can you get along with someone you find difficult, distasteful or downright obnoxious? Well, it helps to remember that you aren’t perfect either. Remember that whatever you might feel about a person, someone else might feel the same about you. We’re all human, after all. We all  have our faults . It’s usually possible just to avoid people you don’t get along with. However, at some point you may have to work with someone you dislike. That may seem tough, but you can work with (almost) anyone if you just keep a few things in mind. In fact, by using these tips, you might find that a challenging person can still offer useful ins

Your Comfort Zone Is Killing Your Success

Applying for jobs just out of college or grad school, comfort may have seemed like the ultimate goal: to find the perfect job that was a natural fit and have a long, fulfilling career there. Forget all of that: comfort is the enemy. If things are easy, it's time to shake up your career. Remember when you were young, and you first attempted to write a bicycle? Were you scared at first? Absolutely. Was the end result worth it? I'm betting it was.  Hopping into a new job or career path is indeed a lot like that first ride on a bike: a heart-pumping, adrenaline-inducing risk-- and the payoffs can be as meaningful as the life-changing freedom of mastering two wheels.  Getting out of your comfort zone is a must if you want to achieve extraordinary success. I like to think of it as a shift into your "strength zone": identify, highlight and hone in on what makes you unique and lean into it so you stand out. The hardest part of shaking things up is taking

Here's Why You Need to Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

I absolutely love my job. I almost feel like life isn’t real. That’s how much I love it. I have fun, flexibility and I’m working in the industry of my dreams.  Yet I just accepted a new job. Let me elaborate. A few weeks ago, I was invited to interview for a new position. Several days later, I was offered the job. This unleashed a world of struggle inside me because I love my current job.  I’ve been at this company for a little over a year now, and it’s been an amazing experience. I have learned a lot and grown as a person. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a mentor who has guided me and propelled me along. And I’ve had flexibility: I can, for the most part, work the schedule I set for myself. There’s something invaluable about that. So when I was faced with the decision of accepting a new job, I had to take a really hard look at my options. I kept thinking, Well, I have fun at work. I have a flexible schedule. I like the people I work with. There are certain perks I’d b

Why Common Sense Is Key To Successful Management

“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson I often say management is hard but not complex. Much of effective management involves common sense.  But just because something is common sense doesn’t mean it’s commonly practiced.  If management truly were easy, which it’s not, we’d never see national employee engagement levels hovering persistently around 30 percent .  Which we do. Keep in mind in this post I’m not talking about managing business activities as sophisticated, let’s say, as engineering culture change, or developing a cutting-edge new product, or altering the strategic direction of a company.  I’m talking about nuts-and-bolts day-to-day management.  I’m talking about managing your fundamental operations effectively, as all successful companies have to.  Which always involves one thing: getting the best out of your people on an ongoing basis. In this context, following are four thoughts on effective m

Review: Warren Buffett's Management Secrets: Proven Tools for Personal and Business Success

Overview Even in today's economic climate, when so many investors and major companies are failing, Warren Buffett continues to be successful in all aspects of his life. Mary Buffett and David Clark have written the first book ever to take an in-depth look at Warren Buffett's philosophies for personal and professional management — what they are, how they work, and how you can use them. Through close examination of Warren Buffett's life and career from his earliest days to now, Buffett and Clark shed light on his decision-making processes and reveal his strategies for keeping on track and maintaining focus. They examine Buffett's inimitable leadership qualities and explain how Warren integrated what he learned over time into a winning management formula and became not only the manager whom other managers want to emulate but also the second richest man in the world. A true companion volume to Buffett and Clark's successful Buffettology series, Warren Buff