A competitive world has two possibilities for you. You can lose. Or, if you want to win, you can change.
Lester Thurow, Dean, Sloan School of Management, M.I.T., 60 Minutes, February 7, 1988

By Murray Johannsen

In the 50s, Katz wrote a classic article in the Harvard Business Review titled, "The Skills of the Administrator." Katz divided required business and management skills into three general areas: human relations, technical, and conceptual.

This article builds on that foundation and adds two more to better target the skills entrepreneurs or executives to better account for business skills need during an era of globilization and rapid change.

These five domains are:

• Self-mastery
• Leadership
• Management
• Technical, and
• Strategy and Tactics.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. — Henry David Thoreau

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Business Managment Skills Domain 1: Technical

My sister lived in Burma and was having some wiring installed by a native electrician. Again and again he would come to her for instructions, and finally, in exasperation, she said, "You know what I want done. Why don't you use your common sense and do it?" He made a grave bow and said, "Madam, common sense is a rare gift of God. I have only a technical education."
Dr. Carl Compton —The Public Speaker's Treasure Chest

Most people get their first job based on their technical skills (unless one happens to be the daughter of the owner, but that is another story). These types of jobs include traditional jobs such as software programmer, engineer, hair dresser and machinist to the more exotic ones such as web master, systems integrator and beauty consultant. In fact, the U.S. Labor Department's Dictionary of Occupational Job Titles contains over 28,000 different technical skills.

Technical skills does not imply high technology since janitors, telephone operators, and secretaries are included in this are. It may require a degree or just on-the-job training. For example, a story is told about a young man, who was hired to work at a supermarket. He reported for his first day of work and the store manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, "Your first job will be to sweep out the store." "But I'm a college graduate." the young man replied indignantly. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that," said the manager. "Here, give me the broom, I'll show you how."

Not all technical skills are equally in demand. One of the prime mistakes high school grads and college students make is not understanding the value society places on different technical skills. Some appreciate in value (programmers), while others are in decline (telephone operators and secretaries).

Technical skills can also become obsolete. As any one who is in the software area can attest, their knowledge has a limited shelf life. This is an increasing problem for many companies. Its like needing a workforce running with the computing power of a calculator when one needs a Pentium microprocessor. Just having a sound set of technical skills is not enough for those who wish to move up in the organization—they must also develop other types of skills.

Today’s business graduates have an abundance of technical knowledge. They can do linear programming, calculate a discounted rate of return, develop a sophisticated marketing plan, and crunch numbers on a computer spreadsheet. They’re technically solid, but most lack the interpersonal and social skills necessary to lead people.

From Robbins, S. (1989). Training In Interpersonal Skills

Business Managment Skills Domain 2: Leadership

My father had a simple test that helps me measure my own leadership quotient: When you are out of the office he once asked me, does you staff carry on remarkable well without you?
Martha Peak, Group Editor, AMA Magazines, Management Review, October 1992

In fact, in a 2005 study called, Why New Hires Fail, it was pointed out that it's the human relations skills that gets one fired. Top failure areas included: Coachability (26%): Emotional Intelligence (23%): Motivation (17%): and Temperament (15%). Lack of technical skills accounted for 11% of failed new hires.

One of the greatest source of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction is the quality of the relationship an employee has with their boss. If their manager lacks leadership skills, morale goes into the dumpster and turnover sky rockets. One rather humorous example comes from Psychology Today which once reported that, “95 percent of American men estimate they are in the top 50 percent of social skills.”

It has long been known that while top-notch technical skills allow one to be considered for supervision, it's your people skills that allow you to keep the job. Too often, a technical expert gets promoted and then can't get along with others—creating a lose-lose situation for the company and that individual.

Since these are considered to be “soft” skills, managers rarely want to spend hard dollars. Top management’s failure to understand the importance of developing leadership and social skills in the managerial ranks is both penny wise but pound foolish.

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Business Management Skills Domain 3: Strategy and Tactics

Looking for differences between the more productive and less productive organizations, we found that the most striking difference is the number of people who are involved and feel responsible for solving problems.
Michael McTague, Management and training consultant, Personnel Journal, March 1986

For those that see themselves in the executive ranks or desire to own their own business, another category of business skills must be developed. These conceptual skills deal with the ability to use mental heuristics and understand paradigms to solve problems and make decisions. Unfortunately, many individuals lack the ability to successfully solve complex problems.

When the quality movement begin to blossom in America during the 80s, one of the foundation principles taught to employees were the Seven Tools of Quality. These were really very simple techniques such as flow charting and Pareto analysis. When used routinely throughout the organization, this basic tool set was enough to allow companies like GE, Motorola, Toyota and Sony to develop a reputation for high quality that resulted in better profit margins.

At the executive level, these business skills come into play in a different way. Executives must deal with a rapidly changing environment fraught with risk and uncertainty. They must develop marketing, sales and competitive strategies that are better than their competitors if they hope to get in front of the rest of the pack.

An even more subtle strategy and tactics skill involves developing the ability to find new business opportunities. There’s an old saying that goes, “No opportunity is ever wasted. If you miss it, one of your competitors will find it for you.”

For example, while many people consider Microsoft’s Bill Gates to be a techno geek, he is much more than that. He obviously has a vast knowledge of computer programming or Windows would not have evolved. But it would have only been one operating system among many if he lacked the ability to think strategically.

The most dominant executive decision type, will be decisions under uncertainty.
Henry Tosi and Stephen Carroll
Management, John Wiley & Sons, 1976

Business Management Skills Domain 4: Effective Management

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[Referring to his managerial counterparts in local government:] How would you like to run a business where your top management can change every two years, your revenue can depend on the whims and fancies of state and national government, and you have to convince more than half a million people that you can collect garbage, control crime, enhance safety, and brighten the future better than anyone else?
Anonymous executive, Chief Executive, Winter 1982-1983

Despite the fact that many individuals inside organizations consider themselves to be managers, there is a surprising amount of confusion on exactly what the term "management" means. If you accept the wordnet definition from the Princeton.edu site, it is "the act of managing something." Another better definition that captures the essence of management goes this way, "Managment is the efficient allocation of scarce resources to accomplish an organizational goal."

But I personally prefer the definition, put forward by Grace Hooper since it captures critical domains of business. She said, "You manage things—You lead people." But whatever definition you choose, good management is critical to good government and growing a business.

Business Managment Skills Domain 5: Self-Transformation Leading to Self-Mastery

The easiest person to deceive is one's own self.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1803-1873, English novelist and playwright

If you think the definition of management is confusing, self-mastery is even more difficult to nail down. But it is without doubt the most important business skills to develop. When one is in power, even small faults become noticed, magnified, and discussed by underlings. Impatience as an engineer is barely noticed, but in the vice-president of engineering, it's a major problem.

This was driven home in a recent book by Marshall Goldsmith called, What Got You Here, Wont' Get You There. In this book in which he documented twenty-one major faults of the CEO's he has worked with as a result of a number of years of executive coaching. These include, failing to give recognition, making excuses, and not listening.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th American President

Conclusion

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Typically, what goes unseen gets neglected. There is an old story from the Middle East that illustrates this point.

One day a neighbor happens to walk by and see his friend Nasrudin looking for something so he asks, "Nasrudin, what have you lost?" "My key," said Nasrudin. "Exactly where did you drop the key?" “In my house." "Then why are you looking here for your key?" "There is more light here than in my house."

Moral of the Story: It's where you are not looking that you will find the key to what you are looking for.

For individuals and organizations alike to grow, they must invest in the business skills required to prosper. It's the combination of the skills in these five domains: technical, leadership, management, self-mastery and strategy and tactics that make all the difference between success and failure.

Discover how to assess these skills. Take action now.

Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted.

David Bly