Leaders,
In my work on the committee of a diversity group focused on woman I have learned quite a bit in regards to diversity. It’s interesting that a lot of the material that we go through to help woman can equally bring value to anyone who wishes to advance. One of the areas we (the council) are looking at is the subject of today’s email, business acumen.
In a Ted Talk labeled “The career advice you probably didn't get”, Susan Colantuono talks about how many woman leaders and hi-potential candidates focus too much on soft skills. Ultimately Susan believes that they don’t have the business, strategic, and financial knowledge (I’ll sum these three up as business acumen) that is expected of them to obtain higher positions. While this talk is geared toward woman, it easily applies to anyone who is looking to advance.
When I was in IT I thought I knew quite a bit about our business. Where IT people are concerned, I did know a lot. The reality of just how little I knew came quickly when I moved to Operations. Operations has shown me that there are so many more moving pieces to our organization and while I had a nice high level understanding of our company, my understandings were not entirely correct and in most cases they were quite incomplete. Today I am working to fill the gaps and create a more complete understanding of our business. I don’t believe it would have been possible had I not been given this opportunity because I simply had no idea how little I actually knew.
Do you know how we make money? It’s a simple question but do you understand how exactly we make money? Do you know how much money we actually make off of what we do? Do you know where all the money we make goes and how it is spent? Do you understand what part corporate plays in our business unit's operation? Where does your individual contribution hit our organization’s financial sheet? Is your contribution in line with the company’s current financial situation and strategy? Do you know how to align your duties and strategies or those of your team, to the company’s? Can you relay to your people these things and help them see how their work and contributions are in alignment (or out of alignment) with the company’s strategy?
I won’t ask if you all know the health of our company. If you’re on this distribution list and you actually read it, you’ll know that. Are you using the company’s health as a guide to what you should be doing in your role? You must learn to do this now. If you can’t align people as a supervisor or manager, how will you be able to do it as a manager or director? Even more powerful, those of you without a formal people leader title, can you align your co-workers and maybe your supervisor without having the formal title?
All too often we focus on how to be a great leader, great communicator, and similar skills that most of us attribute to being advanced. I’ve spent the last 8+ years reading all the management, leadership, and communications books I could find. While these are critical, there are other parts to being advanced and I now believe business acumen is one of the most critical. It's expected that you simply have business acumen. If you don’t have this critical piece it will be very difficult to advance to or past the role of manager.
Let's have a great week -don
