The Best Resources to Excel in Business Management
Managing a business requires a two-fold approach. You need to know people. You need to be able to understand them and how to lead them so that they all work at their best and produce the results you need. You also need to know how to lead the business as a whole, which requires a forward-thinking approach and a combined knowledge of business processes and economics.
There are many resources available to help you perfect both components. Some can be done for free every day, while others are bigger investments that boast even bigger payoffs.
An MBA or Specialized Master’s in Business
If there is one resource that will help you excel in your career – whether that is working for yourself or for someone else – it is the MBA. The best online masters programs in business even allow you to concentrate your studies in different areas. This allows you to specialize your education to directly target your goals. From business intelligence, accounting principles, finance, and health sector management and beyond, the specializations are key to building the right groundwork for a career in successful business management.
The best part is that, as it is entirely online, it is designed to be completed by working professionals. There is no need to break away from your career to obtain your MBA. Instead, you can work it into your daily schedule and complete it in as little as two years.
Everyday Reading
An MBA builds exceptionally solid foundations that will help you excel in leadership positions, but it is not the end of your education. Times change. Businesses evolve. You need to take what you have learned from your MBA and build on that knowledge every single day. Only then can you truly be able to look forward to the future and make the right decisions for your company.
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Business Journals
Business journals or academic journals take a deeper look at financial analysis. They are the ones that help businesses understand the empirical data and recommend real action to take advantage of that data. You can learn more about subjects such as how certain processes save time, what you will need to do to encourage productivity, and so on.
This sort of information will be taught during your MBA, but new research is released regularly. Take advantage of any alumni access you may have to these journals and stay up to date with the latest theories in the research world. Industry Reports
Industry reports are key to staying ahead of the game in your industry, and the reports you should look at will come from a variety of sources. You should ideally work to have one commissioned for your own business, so that you can have actionable research conducted with your business at its heart.
Other places you should look at for these reports are your competitors, government bodies, and charities. All of these will provide new insights into your industry that can be translated into actionable strategies for your own brand.
Tech and Business News
Staying up to date with the news is another key habit you should get used to if you want to excel in the business world. Business news will include changes to policy or law, or even news that that will impact your business. Tech news is key so that you can take advantage of the latest tools and resources for your business as they become available, instead of always playing catch-up with your competitors.
It’s so easy to incorporate learning from these resources.
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Attend Events
Learning on your own is a great way to stay on top of the latest literature and news, but for insights by those in your industry, you will want to attend events, too. This includes conferences, workshops, and talks. Sometimes you won’t learn anything new, and that is okay. Attending these events offers multiple benefits to attendees:
Networking
The biggest benefit is networking. If you want to know the best minds in the industry personally, you go to events where they will be. You socialize with them after they host a talk and start a conversation with them. This is one of the most natural and effective ways to network with the most talented people in your industry.
You might meet someone you want to hire. You might meet someone who wants to hire you. The possibilities are endless when you make it a point to attend these types of events regularly.
New Ideas
Even one new small idea makes attending worthwhile. With so many great minds in one place working on expanding existing knowledge to pave the way to tomorrow, it is almost guaranteed you will learn something worthwhile during your time there.
Reputation Building
Don’t just attend, but host. By getting up there and presenting your own ideas, you will build your reputation as a leader in your field. This will expand your career options exponentially.
Work with Feedback
At work, you will want to request feedback from your employees, just as you give them feedback to help them improve. Allow for this to be done anonymously to encourage people to be as honest as possible. You cannot become a better leader if you make the same mistakes again and again.
Not every grievance will be workable. Some people may just not like you, but if your overall leadership methods are effective, you need to learn to just accept this. Focus on issues that seem to be recurrent among several employees first, so that you can make changes to yourself and your leadership that will make the biggest impact.
Be Committed to Growth
What all of these resources – an MBA, events, and feedback – have in common is that they showcase a commitment to your personal growth. Only when you strive to be better than you were the day before will you become the perfect candidate to handle executive-level positions on a global scale.
Whether you want to work for someone else or start your own business, these resources are what you will need to excel in business management.
Author: Carol Trehearn
[…] does it take to succeed as a CMA? Though there’s some overlap with the skills used in business management, you’ll be tested on a number of key competencies critical to this high-stakes industry. These […]