What I've Learned in Business So Far...

[RWK]

This is fantastic advice, thank you

By the way, do you know how useful it is to have an econ background going into an accounting field as I'll be studying both in the fall?

 

[gettoasty]

Did not want to start a new thread for this question so perhaps people with experience can shed some light. What would you guys suggest/prefer wearing to interviews?

I do not have a lot of money so I am thinking a nice shirt+tie+pants+shoes v. an entire suit (although right now I am shopping around and the price difference is pretty close).

A suit would be a wise investment--Will the former really be the difference in landing a job?

 

[ChicagoRon]

Invest in the suit. If you are entry level, nobody will be expecting SF approved. Get something serviceable (Jos. A Bank, lower end BB) and get it tailored well (i.e. not in the store - which usually costs money anyway if you buy on sale).

You'll need it for weddings, funerals, etc. in addition to interviews. While it may not "land you the job", you want any differences the employer sees between you and the other interviewees to be positive ones, not negative. At entry level, everybody starts to look the same... you don't want to stand out for the wrong reasons.

 

[yjeezle]

^ +1
just don't look like a slob.

 

[RedScarf7]

Great thread. Kind of off topic, but didn't want to start a new thread for this.

Anyone have experience in strategic/business development? Specifically, I have an opportunity to move into strategic development as an analyst at an oil and gas company and was wondering if anyone here has any experience in this domain they can share?

 

[Kiwi Man]



Originally Posted by Aaron

- People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. (I stole this).

decent TED talk by this guy: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/si...re_action.html

he's on the speaker circuit

I want to THANK YOU for giving this link. I wonder if there are any other links that I can watch videos of these great speakers. I know that Ted has a lot of videos of other speakers, but I still want to watch more. Where can I go about to find it?

Some thoughts one charisma in business leaders.You will find along your journey some leaders and colleagues that are charismatic. People and clients will be drawn to them. They will advance ahead of their age. They will be invited to important meetings, often for less good reasons. They will generally be an asset to the company.Some will be genuinely good people, many will be highly political but with the gift of charisma. Of course, one might argue that true charisma and leadership will inspire people and offer follow-through in the decent and fair treatment of everyone on the team. On the rare occasions this actually occurs, I have seen teams do insanely great things.So it boils all down to trust.In business it might be best to follow the ole saying "trust but verify". Actually "verify then trust" might be more appropriate.

This is similar to the video that I watch above

Good Work Habits*Set expectations appropriately on each project. Managing people's expectations is critical.*If you are overloaded decline work but share the reason.*Look at your Outlook or other calendar the night before and think about a "to do" list to keep you on time with deliverables.*Prepare for every call, internal and external. Bring a point of view and any needed analysis. If you show people you are prepared then they will be inclined to include you more often.*Be careful who you copy on your emails. There is a fine line in business between informing important stakeholders and spamming. *Think twice before copying senior managers and leaders in emails. Sometimes you will be unaware of the political goings on in the executive area and an innocent email can lead to unintended consequences.*Consider strongly but don't obsess over format of any content. You want it to look good but you can get OCD and lose sight of the big picture.*Develop a network of close colleagues whom you care share analysis and thoughts with. A good critique is worth its weight in gold.*Find a mentor or close friend you can privately and confidentially ***** about a work issue with. Someone who can thoughtfully share 3rd party insight and advice is invaluable.*Avoid people who don't deliver results. Life is too short. When they blow a major deadline, make sure someone senior hears about it in a diplomatic fashion.*Play nice. Collaborative teams is where it is at.*Avoid office negativity. It may bring you down and accomplishes little beyond the initial cathartic release of pressure.*Reward people who perform. *Treat administrative and operations people with love and respect. It will pay huge dividends. There is no place for bullying anyone with a lower title or any job.*Communicate honestly with everyone you interface with. Senior leaders appreciate the truth-good, bad and ugly.

Personally, facing negativity in the workfoce is nearly impossible. the way that I see it is that working with many people, disagreeing and aruging with other colleages are inevitable.

 

[explicit]

interesting thread. great read!

 

[gnatty8]

Very good thread Fran, appreciate you making the effort and sharing your experience.. I was disappointed not to see Creative Destruction amongst your recommended reading. Normally I despise Business/Management books, since they seem to be repetitive and full of common sense bullshit. Creative Destruction though was more about challenging the way corporations think, and how to successfully fight against groupthink. Still the first book I recommend when in a mentoring relationship with someone who asks for some suggested reading.

 

[HanryJoyner]

These tips are really useful for me. thanks for sharing.

 

[Willie5566]

Finally! Phew! That was a lot of reading! It hard to stay quiet through the whole thing. Just a coupe of comments without rehashing the whole thread.

I posted this in another thread, but think it has a place here too:I read once a very true statement about management:20% of the people do 80% of the work. Good management means finding the right thing for the other 80% to do so they will be successful, and they will stay out of the way of the other 20%.

I whole-heatedly agree with this and have seen examples of this all over the place. I think what people need to understand here is most of the people here are in the top 10-15% of managers. Many of you are in large consulting firms, Fortune 500 Companies or the like. In those arena's I would anticipate a lot of "go getters." Unfortunately, outside of those places you have a few stars and sadly fewer good managers. While I think Ron's quote would be a good goal for most managers of these businesses I find the reality is 20% get absolutely buried in work and responsibilities and the other 80% coast. The mangers think they are great because the 20% still make them look great but they are killing themselves doing it. Sad but this is reality outside of Corporate America.

Great thread. Kind of off topic, but didn't want to start a new thread for this.Anyone have experience in strategic/business development? Specifically, I have an opportunity to move into strategic development as an analyst at an oil and gas company and was wondering if anyone here has any experience in this domain they can share?

What strategy is involved in constantly increasing fuel prices? JK

Great thread! Thanks for all of your hard work putting this together AF.

 

[NAMOR]

I have learned that no matter how early the meeting, take the time to get your caffeine fix before your meeting. I recently attended a string of early meetings without my cup of coffee and they were complete disasters. My focus was severely lacking.

 

[indesertum]

This is stupid, but what fonts do you guys use for presentations?

 

[poissa]

I work in a financial services company supporting operations & technolgy as an internal consultant. As a side project I'm working with management to quantify business process flows and projects. The goal is to create metrics for different levels of management within a company. This may be naive, are there metrics or guides/book/areas to research metrics that could be useful for our organization for reducing complexity, risk, and time of business processes/projects.

Congrats on the promotion to partner!

 

[Mandrake9072]



I work in a financial services company supporting operations & technolgy as an internal consultant. As a side project I'm working with management to quantify business process flows and projects. The goal is to create metrics for different levels of management within a company. This may be naive, are there metrics or guides/book/areas to research metrics that could be useful for our organization for reducing complexity, risk, and time of business processes/projects.

Congrats on the promotion to partner!

+1. I'm in a very similar situation except I'm in IT that supports the Financial operations in the company and at some point will have to work with metrics. Atm, I've been just looking at past metrics and identifying areas for improvement myself but if there are any external resources, I'd definitely interested in reading.

 

[otc]



This is stupid, but what fonts do you guys use for presentations?

Make sure it matches and isn't something wacky and that is basically all you need. Some firms have very specific style guides and even go so far as having their own fonts (I would guess they are really just a stock typeface from a big foundry with a small change or two that they slap their name on to seem cool and make sure everyone uses it).

At my company, reports that get filed with the court for a trial are almost always done in TNR. Charts and tables in these are TNR to match. If there is then testimony in addition to filing our report, a lot of the powerpoint decks I do are on very simple templates and use calibri. Any versions of charts/tables from the report that are then used in the presentation are also moved to calibri to match.

I wouldn't be opposed to standardizing on some "nice" font but all of microsoft's default fonts are reasonable when used consistently