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This BLOG contains various insightful articles that may help and inspire professionals apply the discipline of management practices.

What makes a manager?

2/25/2013

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WHAT MAKES A MANAGER? Nowadays how easy it is for an employee to earn a title "manager" in a company: big or small; local or global.

Just because someone works in a company longer than the rest members of the team; or someone can speak louder and rub shoulder; or someone has a better pay: Hence he is appointed as a manager. Does it sound familiar? 

This practice is not just misleading, worst, it's destructive! A fine recipe for creating emotional and moral decline.

A few years ago, my big brother had cancer (thanks God he survived). His strength and energy were declining rapidly from day to day despite the treatment he went through and the medication he took. One of my sisters, out of her fear of losing him, asked: "How come that you are not getting stronger". "Do you want to be strong?" Replied my brother calmly,  "stick a Samson image on your forehead!"  This, of course, made us laugh! 

Like my funny brother who could only imagine being strong by suggesting a Samson sticker on his forehead, being a manager isn't just having a "title" that is sticked on someone's forehead to let people around him know that he now belongs to the corporate rank of importance. 

So, what makes a manager? Are there any certain characteristics required?

Perhaps, another leading question should be asked first is: What does a corporation require of its managers? 

Peter Drucker, whom Jack Welch considered as the greatest management thinker of the last century, describes that a manager has two specific tasks. First, creating output: a collective result as a true whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. Second, taking actions and making decisions concerning the corporate's immediate and long-range future requirements, and harmonizing them. 

Drucker compares a manager with the conductor of a symphony orchestra, under whose directions and leadership individual instrumental parts  when played together become the living whole of music. Although Drucker also points out that the conductor has the composer's score, hence he is only interpreter. But the manager is both composer and conductor. 

In that case, to be a manager, does it require genius, or at least a special talent?

Again, Peter Drucker, in his classic management book titled The Practice of Management, answers: "No". He then explains that what a manager has to be able to do can be learned; though not always can be taught. Yet there is one quality that cannot be learned; a qualification that a manager cannot even acquire but must bring with him: It is character.

Among excellent skills that a manager could learn and acquire, skills that magnify a manager's character* are: the ability to show concern and consideration for others, inspire and motivate others, be decisive, focus on results, be assertive. Above all he must be a man of honesty and integrity. If any one of these values is missing, the harmony of the corporation is at stake. 

Remember the fall of great business empire such as a Texas-based America's most innovative company, Enron Corporation and the oldest merchant bank in Britain, Baring Securities? How did they collapse? Corruption, fraud and forgery scandal! It was the deliberate abortion of the most precious character: Honesty and integrity! 

What makes a manager, then? First and foremost, it is character. And the essential skill that a manager must have according to Drucker is communication: How to get his thinking across to others, and also how to find out what others are after. Finally he concludes "without the ability to motivate by means of the written and spoken word or telling number, a manager cannot be successful."  

*Making Yourself Dispensable by J.H. Zenger, J.R. Folkman, and S.K Edinger, October 2011 Harvard Business Review, page 85


Note: Image used in this post is contributed by Melissa Mu Photography.

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What makes an entrepreneur?

2/22/2013

4 Comments

 
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WHAT MAKES AN ENTREPRENEUR? Let's start from the beginning. The definition of the word: Entrepreneur.

ENTRE.PRE.NEUR (n). a person who organises and manages business undertaking, assuming the risks for the sake of the profit. 

The key words that associate very closely with an entrepreneur are business, commonly called as business venture, and risks.

In 1755, the word entrepreneur was first coined by an Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon in his book Essay on the Nature of Trade in General. Few centuries later until today, the word entrepreneur is still being used widely.

What makes an entrepreneur? 
The spirit to be one. The courage to be independent. The strong ability to sense a business opportunity and dare to pursue it in the midst of  difficulties. The will to take on risks. 

True entrepreneurs are not afraid of risks, but bring them all into the light: examine them and manage them. Just like a doctor treats patients. A good doctor will not rest until the treatment is properly done and the cure is on its way. So it is with an entrepreneur: not to give up, until the business venture he/she started takes its wings. 

But, having the spirit alone is not enough. It takes skills to be a successful entrepreneur. Skills needed for an entrepreneurial spirit include persuasive selling, communication, decision making, negotiating, and inter-personal skills, just to name a few.

Apart from having the right spirit and skills, an entrepreneur must answer, according to Amar Bhidé, a lecturer on Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, the three questions: Are my goals well defined? Do I have the right strategy? Can I execute the strategy?

Are my goals well defined? It is a question about an entrepreneur's personal aspirations. Is  the business he/she senses sustainable for the long run? Can he/she handle it when it grows big? What kind of risks are to be managed and sacrifices to be made?

Do I have the right strategy? A simple definition of strategy is "doing the right things and doing things right". Entrepreneurs should ask themselves if they know what the "right things" are. The right things could be doing things which have not been done before, hence unique. 

Can I execute the strategy? Once entrepreneurs know what the "right things" are, success will not just come by itself. The most important part of the equation now is to know how to execute the strategy: "How to do the right things". This includes finding the right resources in order to create the right products or services. Find customers: approach them, persuade them to buy, and keep them interested in business transaction. Only then the enterprise delivers the business with excellence. And the business operations can go on.

So to sum up, what makes an entrepreneur? The right spirit, skills, and strategy and executing it with perseverance and unaltered passion!



Note:
Image used in this post is contributed by Melissa Mu Photography of Sydney.






 




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    Author

    Fourteena, a business strategy professional, is passionate about sharing her knowledge with professionals around the globe. To her "to grow in knowledge" means to share.

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