The mobile MBA 112 skills to take you further, faster

201 Pages·2011·1.28 MB·English

by  Owen, Jo

is your career progressing as fast as you want the the
it to? Do you love your job, but think you could
benefit from a business school education?
the Mobile Mba delivers all the knowledge
you need to fast track your career.
the Mobile Mba is your portable business coach.
it explains Mba skills, models and applications and
shows you how to put the grand theory and big talk
into practice.
the Mobile Mba comes complete with 11 free
video Skill-Pills, which can be downloaded to your
smartphone, tablet or computer. Get access to
up-to-date advice on the move so you can apply
your new skills where and when you need them.
112 SkillS tO take yOu further, faSter
J
O
O
W
eN JO OWeN
£12.99
BUSINESS
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www.pearson-books.com CoVEr dESIgN By EllIpSIS lTd
9780273750215_CVR.indd 1 13/04/2011 17:00

In an increasingly competitive world, we believe it’s quality of
thinking that gives you the edge – an idea that opens new
doors, a technique that solves a problem, or an insight that
simply makes sense of it all. The more you know, the smarter
and faster you can go.
That’s why we work with the best minds in business and finance
to bring cutting-edge thinking and best learning practice to a
global market.
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Prentice Hall, we create world-class print publications and
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112 SKILLS TO TAKE YOU FURTHER, FASTER
JO OWEN
Pearson education Limited
Edinburgh Gate
Harlow CM20 2JE
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Website: www.pearsoned.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2011
© Jo Owen 2011
The right of Jo Owen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN: 978-0-273-75021-5
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Owen, Jo.
The mobile MBA / Jo Owen.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-273-75021-5 (pbk.)
1. Management. 2. Business. I. Title.
HD31.O8463 2011
658--dc22
2011010361
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of
the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued
by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N
8TS. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of
trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without
the prior consent of the Publishers.
All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. The use of
any trademark in this text does not vest in the author or publisher any trademark
ownership rights in such trademarks, nor does the use of such trademarks imply any
affiliation with or endorsement of this book by such owners.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
15 14 13 12 11
Designed by Design Deluxe
Typeset in 9pt Myriad Pro Light by 30
Printed by Ashford Colour Press, Gosport
Brief contents
Introduction ix
1 The world of strategy 1
2 Marketing and sales 19
3 Finance and accounting 37
4 Human capital 65
5 Operations, technology and change 81
6 Lead your team 95
7 Dealing with colleaguess 115
8 Managing across the organisation 127
9 Managing yourself 141
10 The daily skills of management 153
11 Manage your career 169
Index 185
contents
Introduction ix
1 3
The world of Finance and
strategy 1 accounting 37
MM The nature of strategy 2 MM Introduction 38
MM Dealing with strategy 4 MM Maths for managers 38
MM Applying strategy to your area 5 MM Surviving spreadsheets 40
MM Four pillars of strategy 7 MM The financial structure of the
MM Strategy and the art of unfair firm 41
competition 8 MM Models of business 42
MM Portfolio strategy 9 MM Financial accounting 44
MM Creating a vision for your firm MM How to use the Capital Asset
and your team 11 Pricing Model 45
MM Mergers and acquisitions 12 MM Assessing investments in
MM How to be innovative 13 practice 48
MM The language of strategy 14 MM Negotiating your budget 49
MM Business start-ups 16 MM Managing your budget 51
MM Overseeing budgets 52
2 MM The balanced scorecard 54
Marketing and MM The nature of costs: cash versus
sales 19 accruals 55
MM The nature of costs: fixed versus
variable 56
MM Introduction 20
MM Cutting costs: method
MM The nature of marketing 20
changes 58
MM The advertising brief 21
MM Cutting costs: slash and burn 60
MM How to be an advertising expert
MM Cutting costs: smoke and
22
mirrors 61
MM The marketing brief 23
MM Market segmentation 25
MM How to price 26 4

MM Market research 28 Human capital 65
MM Competitive and market
intelligence 30
MM What people buy and why 32 MM Introduction 66
MM How not to sell 34 MM Dealing with HR professionals 66
CONTENTS vii
MM HR strategy and minimising the MM How to motivate: the theory 103
cost of production 67 MM How to motivate in practice 104
MM HR strategy and the quality of MM Styles of coaching: coaching,
production 68 counselling or dictating? 106
MM HR strategy: enabling growth MM Coaching for managers 107
(or decline) 73 MM Giving praise 110
MM HR strategy: compensation 74 MM How to criticise 111
MM Organisation culture and what MM Managing MBAs and other
you can do about it 75 professionals 113
MM Organisation culture and how to
change it 76 7
MM When to fire someone 78 Dealing with
MM Ethics 79 colleagues 115
5
MM Introduction 116
Operations,
MM Colleagues or competitors? 116
technology and
MM Understanding yourself 118
change 81
MM Understanding others 119
MM Negotiating judo: succeed
MM Introduction 82
without fighting 121
MM How to start a change effort 82
MM How to disagree agreeably
MM Setting up a project for
(how to turn disagreement into
success 84
agreement) 122
MM Managing projects 85
MM How to handle exploding head
MM The nature of quality 86
syndrome 123
MM Applying quality 87
MM When to fight 125
MM Restructuring the organisation 88
MM Reengineering 89
MM Using consultants 91 8
Managing across the
MM Dealing with the law 92
organisation 127
6
MM Introduction 128
Lead your team 95
MM Networks of influence 128
MM Making decisions 131
MM How to influence decisions 133
MM Introduction 96
MM Managing crises 134
MM How to take control 96
MM The art of the good meeting 135
MM What your team wants from
MM Getting your way in meetings 135
you 97
MM Surviving conferences 137
MM Setting goals 99
MM Corporate entertaining 138
MM How to delegate 101
viii CONTENTS
9
Managing MM Professional guard 165
yourself 141 MM Etiquette 166
MM Dress for success 166
MM The dirty dozen: the language of
MM Introduction 142
business 167
MM Achieving a work–life balance 142
MM Managing time: effectiveness 143
MM Managing time: efficiency 145 11
Manage your
MM Managing stress 146
career 169
MM How to get up in the morning 147
MM Dealing with adversity 148
MM When to move on 150 MM Introduction 170
MM Paths to power 170
10 MM Building your career skills 172
The daily skills MM How to acquire the skills of the
ofmanagement 153 leader 173
MM How to get the right boss and the
right assignment 174
MM Introduction 154
MM Manage your boss 175
MM The art of the persuasive
MM How to get promoted 176
conversation 155
MM How not to get promoted 177
MM Listening 157
MM How to get fired 178
MM The art of presenting 158
MM Ten steps to a good CV 179
MM How to use PowerPoint 159
MM What your CV really says about
MM How to write 161
you 180
MM How to read – and seeing the
MM Manage your profile 181
invisible 162
MM What it takes to be a leader 182
MM Communicating: finding the right
medium 163 Index 185
MM Communicating: principles and
practice 164
introduction
An MBA is a curious beast: it can accelerate your career, even if it has limited
practical value in day-to-day management.
Top employers hire top MBAs, but not because MBAs have mastered the
mysteries of management. An MBA is a hallmark of personal commitment, effort
and ambition which employers value more than the actual content of the MBA
course. Bayesian analysis, the Black Scholes option pricing model and advanced
corporate strategy are all more important in the MBA course than they are for a
manager who is faced with a difficult customer, intransigent colleague, awkward
boss and a tight project deadline.
In practice, the MBA is a classic university course: it is very good at trans-
ferring a body of explicit knowledge from one generation to the next. Explicit
knowledge is about ‘know-what’ skills, like finance, accounting, maths. This
is useful knowledge to have. But as managers’ careers progress, they find that
technical skills become less important and people and political skills become
more important. People and political skills are classic examples of tacit knowl-
edge or ‘know-how’. Universities and MBA courses are simply not very good at
dealing with this sort of knowledge.
Like the MBA, the aim of this book is to help you accelerate your career, but
not by simply reducing an MBA down to a few simplistic formulas. The aim is
more ambitious than that.
This book assumes that you are smart. So The Mobile MBA does not spell out
each MBA theory in detail: it is not trying to condense an entire MBA into one
book. The purpose of The Mobile MBA is to show how you can apply MBA ideas
in daily management practice. So the first part of the book breaks the key ideas
of the MBA into bite-sized chunks and shows how you can use them.
If you already have an MBA you will discover how to use strategy, finance,
accounting, maths, marketing, organisation, operations and human capital in
practice. If you don’t have an MBA, this section will show you that there are no
dark arts which only £60,000 and an MBA will reveal. It will demystify the myster-
ies of the MBA and lay out the simple principles which all managers must learn.
The second part of the book fills in the holes left by the MBA. It gives you
a quick reference check to the survival skills of management. It is not a substi-
tute for your personal experience: it is a sanity check for you. You can see if your
experience is good or bad and if there are better ways of handling the endless
ambiguous events which make management both challenging and rewarding.
You can read this book however you want. You do not have to start at the
beginning and end at the end. You can dip in and out. You can keep it by your desk
and use it as your just-in-time coach, to give you ideas and refresh your thinking
when you face a tough challenge, or you can carry it with you, so you can use it
on the way to meetings, workshops or presentations. You can also use it alongside