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Being A Senior Business Executive: Need to Know

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MightyAtom Korea (South)1897 Posts October 04 2010 03:28 GMT #1

Impervious Canada4222 Posts October 04 2010 03:44 GMT #2 I wouldn't call this boring. It's pretty insightful. I like a bunch of your analogies.

Kezzer United States1268 Posts October 04 2010 03:53 GMT #3 wow this is really interesting so far, nice work

KurtistheTurtle United States1966 Posts October 04 2010 04:11 GMT #4 im gonna have to read this again later after some sleep. i dont understand a lot of it lol

BluzMan Russian Federation4235 Posts October 04 2010 04:19 GMT #5 Reporting is a crucial skill for anyone, not just a manager. It's exactly the same in science (with the same rates, 50% reporting, 40% execution, 10% strategy) and in game design which are two things I actually really got into and was paid money for. This is just a society factor, when you're in a forest with a group of individuals and say you built a house and then caught 10 deer and brought them home for dinner and your results are self-explanatory, but when there are lots of people around (thousands in a large firm) and results of work are not carried directly by your hands (you can't bring a pelt and say "I cracked open a bear"), you pretty much have to convince the group that it is you whose deeds are important/beneficial. It's not that dependent on your field of occupation.

Ciryandor United States3735 Posts October 04 2010 05:10 GMT #6 Now, what I would like to discuss is how one would apply these insights into the world of small and medium enterprises. What many of us who work in these places would know is that there is a lot more emphasis on non-formal reporting (less paperwork lest you overwhelm your superiors with metrics they do not understand), but that personal connections in reporting both formally and informally are a critical part of such functions. Also, strategy in these arenas emerge much faster as a competitive requirement for survival, because of the compression of functions that occur. Am I right in that analysis?

ClanOverdosed 691 Posts October 04 2010 06:04 GMT #7 I just did a quick glance over this blog, so I'm posting so I can come back to it tomorrow

chongu Malaysia2600 Posts October 04 2010 06:38 GMT #8 All this talk about Cocksuckers, Hacks and reporting is.... painful to hear but truthful. plus, its hard to find such insightful stuff on the net/anywhere (closest is probably ppl ranting on blogs?lol) and ur Sargent and the lieutenant example is good, never thought abt it that way. and u learnt this from TV?

MightyAtom Korea (South)1897 Posts October 04 2010 08:18 GMT #9 Impervious & Kezzer ^^ Kurtis: sleep is always best BluzMan: its different in professional business at that level on the basis of weighting, in sciences or academia you need to have that level of reporting or more so, for validation of your results as well as funding, whereas in business it would make you a cocksucker to do that much reporting because what I'm talking about is not what is required reporting, but additional reporting for political reasons. Business is mostly about operations and if you have that much reporting to do, meaning 5 hours of your 10 hour day is spent on reporting, what that means is that you are spending your time spinning your reports or investigating what others are doing and pushing them towards things that are reportable rather than efficient and profitable. Ciryandor: In the context of SMEs (Small Medium Sized Enterprises), formal reporting is one of the biggest forms of non profitable time usages because, you're right, the firm at that size usually has a good system of informal reporting. This issue of reporting is usually most pronounced when this SMEs have to do reporting for gov't grants or regulatory issues, which really screw em up, so interpersonal reports, not as necessary, but I would say: if you are in a senior management position and you can report directly to your owners and equity is up for grabs, an additional update once a month is not a bad call, at least to summarize the month. I'm sure they'll appreciate your level of professionalism, but watch out your other staff might call you a kiss ass. lol. In terms of strategic consideration for firms, regardless of size, your strategic consideration on a goal level would still be set for the full year, and I would say you would feel pressure, a lot of pressure, strategically if you were a small firm and competing nearly head to head with a large firm in the same industry (which would be stupid to do so, unless your firm had some deep pockets or some really commercial new application/advantage). I would also say if you were a small firm in a new industry with very high growth, execution/operations would probably be your main concern rather than strategy as everyone would be growing rapidly. But, if you're in a niche market, you shouldn't be under any less strategic pressure than any other large firm. But in my professional opinion, it all depends on who your competitors are and what stage your industry is at. It is a mistake to try to keep updating your strategy based on a reactionary perspective to what your competitors are doing. What you see them doing is are visible 'tactics' of what their strategy is intending. You need to stay your course to determine whether or not your firm's strategy was correct and then revise, otherwise you'll get in a trap where you end up just short term solutions and no over all long term strategy. This is assuming that you first made your strategy at that level of their strategic intent and not just what they are doing now. Now as a small firms you will be nimble to execute a new strategy faster than the incumbent to gain market share/position. I need to be clear though, when you firm is in survival mode, whatever you are doing is not for strategic considerations its for getting to a position where you are stable enough to think and then make strategy. You can't do both at one time and survival really has nothing to do with strategy, its just survival at any costs, you can make a plan, but that isn't strategy because it has no consideration of the competitors, just for your own firms stability. Beloth: thanks for the bump keke. chongu: thanks for the comment- about the Sargent and lieutenant example, just something I use when I had to explain this during training of my previous staff and interns when I was consultant and director over the years, I haven't trained many, but just an elite few keke but, I just took the example from TV as a kind of common misconception to explain things, if I did just learn it from TV, I'd think the lieutenants were all just cocksuckers keke. Cheers

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