Gauging your business acumen

by | Jun 22, 2015 | Adaptability, Advocacy, Analytical Thinking, Business acumen, Career development, Change Leadership, Newsletter

Business acumen denotes “keenness and quickness (speed) in understanding and dealing with a business situation. So how do you measure on the business acumen scale?

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Issue 4: JUNE  22,  2015

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GAUGING YOUR BUSINESS ACUMEN

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Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs was an American entrepreneur, marketer and inventor, who was the co founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs is globally recognized as having had business acumen. Let us use Steve’s personal profile and characteristics to get an understanding of the concept “Business acumen.

Walter Isaacson, Steve’s biographer wrote a riveting story about this roll coaster. Walter described Steve Jobs as a man of “Intense personality”, a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries. He is the ultimate icon of” inventiveness and applied imagination”.

“Steve Jobs knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology”.  Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic and design-driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution. Steve Jobs’ tale is filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

A number of characteristics can be discerned from Walter Isaacson’s description of Steve Jobs: These include”:

  1. Creativity- Steve was a creative entrepreneur and a critical thinker
  2. Ferocious drive Steve was self driven and demonstrated initiative
  3. Inventiveness and applied imagination- Steve was a strategic thinker who thought outside the box and espoused innovation
  4. Connected things to derive value- Steve knew that the best way to create value was to connect creativity with technology
  5. Charismatic and design driven pioneer

Creativity, critical, analytical and strategic thinking, innovation, decision making and leadership are qualities espoused by many people. People possessing these qualities however, do not necessarily have business acumen. So what defines a person as having business acumen? The speed, keenness and intensity with which these qualities are applied to business situations to get desired outcomes are the defining variables for business acumen.

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Business acumen denotes “keenness and quickness (speed) in understanding and dealing with a business situation.”

In practice, people with business acumen are said to have business ‘sense’ or are business ‘smart’.  They are able to obtain essential information about a situation, focus on the key objectives, recognize the relevant options available for a solution, select an appropriate course of action and set in motion an implementation plan to get the job done and fast.  They are also adaptable. When they discover that changes are required to adapt to unforeseen circumstances, they make the adjustments as necessary and keep the activity moving forward.

Steve Jobs was ferocious, charismatic and design-driven. He was also self-driven and demonstrated  initiative. It is these qualities that enabled him to revolutionize over six industries ranging from personal computers to animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. People with business acumen draw on their analytical and strategic thinking attributes to break business situations into constituent parts, collect data on the parts, synthesize information and link the information to the situations to draw logical conclusions and provide options or recommendations to address the issue or situation. They are able to use information from various sources to develop conceptual and analytical frameworks and/or models to explain complex situations and decide on best courses of action and anticipate likely outcomes. In a particular business, these frameworks are often referred to as “Business models”.

So how do you measure on the business acumen scale? In answering this question it is important to remember that ‘business acumen’ is not genetically transmitted from parents to children or generation to generation as the thinking in some circles might be. It is acquired through developing the relevant competencies including creativity, analytical and strategic thinking, initiative, innovation and decision making. Business acumen occurs when speed, keenness and judgment are applied on the competencies to get  things done.

In an organization, business acumen calls for seeing the ‘big picture’ of .your organization (strategic thinking) particularly how the key drivers of your business relate to each other, work together to produce desirable outcomes.

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It entails understanding important company communications and data, and using the knowledge to make good decisions. Above all a person with good business acumen will balance thoroughness of analysis with speed of decision making. He will analyze the operational environment for issues, opportunities and risk factors in order to identify the most desirable course of action. Most importantly he will be alert, keen and fast in undertaking any of these functions.

For more information about Business acumen and how this can enhance your career visit  our  Email  coaching  program  at  http://www.expressexpertise.com/lesson/getting- started/ and make a coaching request. You can also join our Express expertise career club at http://www.expressexpertise.com/join-club-2/ and get access to a wealth of career building tools and materials

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