As a business executive, I put a high premium on being experienced in operations as well as finance and accounting. Spending time in operations, strategy, marketing, and general management throughout my career has allowed me to take an encompassing look at a business and determine how to most effectively provide strategy to steer it in the right direction.
As no one individual is an island, no business can be effectively run alone. I believe in putting a premium value on management and communication skills while understanding technical the intricacies of the systems needed to operate a business. Creating effective metrics and scorecards also help foster teamwork and accountability while allowing the ability to standardize data and systems.
Below are highlights of a few critical skillsets that I can offer in leading operations or finance:
Leadership Capabilities
As leadership expert Warren Bennis once stated, “leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Great leaders possess social intelligence, a zest for change, and vision that allows them to set their sights on the things that truly merit attention.
It is the job of leader to develop a vision—establish what matters and articulate why—set direction, and inspire others. A leader steps up in times of crisis, and is able to think and act creatively in difficult situations.
Flexibility and Adaptability
Rigidity never worked in the 1990s or 1930s, and it certainly won’t work now. As a leader, I prefer to be open to new ideas, environments, and responsibilities. Technology will constantly be changing, professionals and businesses need to change as well.
Time Management and Organization
The ability to stay organized and prioritize tasks will go a long way to moving you and your company forward. Any computer application may accomplish a task within a millisecond, but it doesn’t know its context or how it fits into the scheme of things. Just as important is the ability to make a decision and act on information now — without getting wrapped up by paralysis by analysis.
Goal Setting
No business operation — no matter how automated and virtualized — will get anywhere without a vision of the end result. It is this vision that focuses and solidifies the activities teams are undertaking. Setting strategic goals and plans help steer a company into the future.
Relationship Building
Nothing helps lay the groundwork for team and company advancement more than cultivating and maintaining good relationships. Social media and email may help make it easier to keep in touch, but the key is to keep those contacts going.
Communication skills
Management is still tight with budgets, and needs to be sold on new project ideas. The ability to construct an argument and make a case forcefully and clearly to a boss, board of directors, client or coworkers will move ideas to fruition. Computer systems can provide all the information needed, but machines don’t know how to package it up to get decision-makers excited about lending their support to a project or idea.
Customer Service Orientation
An organization must cultivate internal customer service with the same intentionality as it cultivates external customer service. Providing great customer experiences is not a single department’s responsibility; it’s everyone’s.
It has been discovered that the way employees treat one another within an organization is a direct reflection of the way they treat customers and clients. The two are interdependent, creating a “virtuous cycle”: When employees treat one another well and with respect, they essentially provide one another exceptional service. And when they master how to provide exceptional service internally, they provide that same level of service externally, to customers and clients.
Teamwork
No matter how talented and educated, one individual cannot do everything that needs to be done to keep an organization on track toward its goals. The ability to surround a company with talented people who can augment your skills will get things done every time without fail.
Desire to Learn
Nothing beats the value of education, whether it’s formal college degrees or completion of training skills in a profession. Even seeking out coworkers on the job for opinions and experiences means the growth of knowledge.
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