Management and business development

[PsaltiChrysostom]

@rjs330, @Wolseley, @Larnievc @iluvatar5150 and others.

I'd like to start a discussion about business and personal development in the business world and I ask that we keep this a pleasant discussion and not get into acrimonious debates.

I am kicking around at the age of 55 to get a MBA or even just take some business courses to get into direct management. I've applied for management positions but my manager's manager said I'm in the Catch-22 situation that I don't have the experience to get the job but how do you GET the experience for the job.

How did you make that jump?

RJS330 said that he leads a business team and had mentioned some different authors. What other resources do you recommend to make that jump into middle management?

 

[Larniavc]

@rjs330, @Wolseley, @Larnievc @iluvatar5150 and others.

I'd like to start a discussion about business and personal development in the business world and I ask that we keep this a pleasant discussion and not get into acrimonious debates.

I am kicking around at the age of 55 to get a MBA or even just take some business courses to get into direct management. I've applied for management positions but my manager's manager said I'm in the Catch-22 situation that I don't have the experience to get the job but how do you GET the experience for the job.

How did you make that jump?

RJS330 said that he leads a business team and had mentioned some different authors. What other resources do you recommend to make that jump into middle management?

What was your previous career?

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

What was your previous career?

I graduated from college in 1991 with a BS in Chemical Engineering and BA in Religious Studies. My dad's thought was if I couldn't turn water into wine one way, I'd do the other. I took over a family business that folded a couple years later after my dad passed away at the age of 55.

I got into chemical equipment sales but was never successful at sales. I did spend one year designing... alcohol distilleries But since I'd never worked as a chemical engineer and just never really knew what I was doing, I was let go.

IT careers were going like mad so I jumped into that, just as the dot.com bubble crashed. I did get a job as a powerpoint designer for a contracting company working at GE Aircraft Engines. My boss there was a Type A manager and I spent 2 years working 80 hours / week and nearly cost me my marriage, health, and my life. I made the decision to pursue seminary (well, cause turning water into wine the chemical engineering route didnt work out).

I ended up going to seminary but due to family issues, I was asked to leave, just as the Great Financial Crisis started. BTW, I have impeccable timing for these things. I was working in IT but still on welfare as salaries had nosedived. Finally in 2010, things started improving and in 2015, I landed my current role and dream position running a hospital communication system that was based on the Star Trek communications badge. I've been bumped up to senior system administrator and I also serve as the trainer and mentor for new hires in the mid-Atlantic. It's not part of my actual job but something I enjoy doing.

So it's been a long and bumpy road.

 

[Larniavc]

I would suggest offering to to supervise or line manage some people at your current job, put in for some management training and then look outside your current company (but in the same field). That's how I did it but I'm in the UK and work for the NHS which was pretty good at funding training places (they funded my masters degree).

 

[iluvatar5150]

@rjs330, @Wolseley, @Larnievc @iluvatar5150 and others.

I'd like to start a discussion about business and personal development in the business world and I ask that we keep this a pleasant discussion and not get into acrimonious debates.

I am kicking around at the age of 55 to get a MBA or even just take some business courses to get into direct management. I've applied for management positions but my manager's manager said I'm in the Catch-22 situation that I don't have the experience to get the job but how do you GET the experience for the job.

How did you make that jump?

RJS330 said that he leads a business team and had mentioned some different authors. What other resources do you recommend to make that jump into middle management?

Thanks for starting the thread. I didn't remember this forum even existed.

I wouldn't call myself "management." I have been, but am not currently, a team/discipline lead. I do audio post-production / sound design, mainly for video games. I got to be a lead by working on a particular franchise for several years, acting as the de facto sound design lead (i.e. the only person) on it for all of the post-release content, and when the next base game came around, I went to my director and said I'd like to be the official sound design lead on it. He shrugged his shoulders and said "okay. You know there's no extra money in it, right?"

A couple years and a couple directors later, I'd gotten so fed up with mismanagement at the project and studio level that I went to my then-new boss and made some demands that either certain things get fixed (including, but not limited to, my below-market compensation) or I step back from being the lead, so instead of fixing things or even negotiating with me, they just sent me packing. Within a month or two, I got a job nearby for more money and less responsibility on a team that's better managed and a project that's more profitable.

I've thought in the past that I'd like to go into management, but after watching the day-to-day of a few folks, I'm pretty sure now that that's not the path I want to take. I'd prefer to stick to a design/team leadership track where my primary responsibilities involve making and planning things. Somebody else can handle the people management. I don't see many leadership opportunities opening up at my current employer, which isn't a critique - it's merely an artifact of their project plans and low turnover, so I doubt I'll stay here forever. But for the time being, it's a good place to get visibility into better processes vs the circus that was my last employer.

 

[bèlla]

What's your ideal position? What would you do if no impediments existed? That's your starting point. Whether that's possible at your current employer or best pursued elsewhere or through a side hustle remains to be seen.

Given the current climate economically this isn't the time to take on debt. I wouldn't fund the mba. If anything, once I determined my ideal I'd work backwards from the end point to gauge my options. I'd be more inclined to invest my energy in developing additional income streams than taking on more responsibility at work.

What are you good at?
What do people come to you to resolve?
What subjects can you expound on with ease?
What do you enjoy and get lost in when undertaking?

You don't have to work for someone to prove your leadership skills. Find out where you excel on the spectrum. Some are great with ideas. They think outside the box and craft unexpected solutions. Others excel at devising a strategy and putting a plan in place to bring the vision to fruition. Execution is their strength. Some oversee aspects of the venture and keep things on track to insure its completion.

Which one resonates? There's usually one that stands out and matches our makeup and another that supports it. Play to your strengths and don't ignore the climate. Layoffs are plentiful. How could you capitalize? Look for holes in your environment and the market. What's being overlooked? That's how you make yourself indispensible. See what others miss. When they zig you zag. Go beyond the obvious.

If management is your forte I'd focus on coaching first. The greater your people skills and performance the more influential you'll become. And I'd supplement it with communication (public speaking) and sales. You don't have to be the best in the corporate world. If you can package it and sell it you'll succeed. And if that's in place you're better off on a stage than an office.

We're in a knowledge economy. Check out Jordan Peterson and Benjamin Hardy or Dr. Eric Berg. That's the future.

~bella

 

[Marianamiles]

I would recommend looking into the work of influential business authors such as Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, and Stephen Covey. All of these authors have written extensively on topics related to business leadership, management, and personal development. Additionally, there are a variety of other business books that provide great insight into the different aspects of running a successful business. It may also be helpful to look into courses and workshops that focus specifically on business and personal development topics. Those can provide tangible skills and knowledge that can help you make the jump into management.

 

[linux.poet]

I really like @bèlla 's questions and I think they deserve more attention. These are good questions for developing any knowledge based business on the internet.

What's your ideal position? What would you do if no impediments existed?

Paid forum moderator making $4000 or more a month.

I think even if I won the lottery tomorrow I'd still be invested in expanding online forums, either owned by myself or others, into the 4K profit mark.

What are you good at?

Writing forum posts, writing SEO compliant articles, providing feedback to site owners on ways to improve their forum operations, moderating topics and posts. Web designing, systems development, poetry.

What do people come to you to resolve?

Problems with site search engine optimization and attracting new users to their site. They also want me to solve the problem of not having enough forum posts on their forum by hiring me to write them.

Occasionally I get a male individual or two who want me to solve their romance/girlfriend hunting issues. I ended up rescuing a coworker from a catfish yesterday and helped him optimize his Tinder profile. Since there are less women online in the circles I frequent, people come to me for a female perspective on certain issues or to solve certain gender dynamic problems.

People IRL want me to make websites for them, or do web design consulting. At one point I was called upon to supervise another web designer to make sure the designs produced were what the organization wanted. That was a weird job. Basically, the problem of "no website" or "my website needs improvement." Weirdly, I tend to hate the people who keep doing this because it just strikes me as a treadmill to nowhere. I gladly work for someone else's forum to obtain the knowledge I need for a project or to support something I care about, but working for other people in the web design context feels miserable to me. I'm not fascinated by web design mechanics, more how a website can best serve its users. It misses the point of why I learned web design in the first place - to help a forum that needed it - and leaves me feeling misunderstood.

People IRL also want me to resolve their financial problems or financial insecurities, which is annoying because I don't seem to have any skills or means to solve them. I think people IRL don't understand the Internet very well, which leads them to either assume that working on the Internet is an unprofitable waste of time, or that the Internet is a money printing machine that I can just pull money out of. Both of those views are toxic and destructive to my mental health.

What subjects can you expound on with ease?

Any subjects related to web design, online forums, and webmastering. Publishing, Twitter/X and YouTube, internet marketing and SEO.

Psychology of online relationships (not just the romantic ones), ethical treatment of forum members, that kind of thing.

What do you enjoy and get lost in when undertaking?

Any sort of online conversation. Forum debate, PM, Discord chatrooms/servers, Slack - doesn't matter. Reading books and doing various in-depth research. Drawing and Graphic design. Playing free mobile games on my tablet.

Right now I'm working as a paid manager for a forum, but it doesn't pay enough and I'm looking to expand. I think since the paid to post forum ecosystem doesn't pay enough, I may need to go into blogging, publishing, and owning my own forums as an admin in order to keep my body and soul together. This doesn't bother me at all.

While these questions are good for developing knowledge-based businesses, I think that they can be applied to a traditional job as well. Especially if it is your dream job and you're enjoying it, these questions will help you think about how you can expand your dream to make it even better or make it so your dream job pays you more. Resolving the problems that people come to you with will increase your value to the company and smooth over a request for a raise.