Will a Strong Foundation of Business Acumen Enhance Your Job Performance?

By: Sam O’Rear

A lot of people ask me, “What do I need to learn to become better prepared for a business management role?”

Many times the answer is specific to that person asking the question, yet the most common answer is to “increase your business acumen”.  Business acumen can encompass many areas.  In the simple version, it would be:

• applied finance
• simple business accounting
• business strategy
• product project justification
• marketing & sales
• communication/messaging

How can you develop your business acumen?

Your knowledge can come through “on the job” training, many times after you have attained the position, you can quickly “ramp up” in the business management essentials required by the new job.  This assumes you have a patient boss, and colleagues that will support your gradual development.

Another approach is to test, apply, get accepted, and attend a MBA graduate course at a university. Typically, it takes time and effort for the acceptance process, and it takes much more time to attend classes, sometimes in a different city. Then there is the cost of attending the MBA classes (typically $20K to $80K over 18-24 months).

You could attend non-accredited training courses in a business management curriculum that will teach you the practical application of most, or all, of the above noted development areas.

How to enhance the business acumen of your “fast-track” employees? 

Mostly, your need to advance the business acumen of your high-performance, fast-track employees is for a) increasing their support capabilities in the team, b) to enhance their measurable performance, and c) to grow their perceived value in the company.  The same three approaches to learn business acumen will apply for your employees as those above.

My experience indicates that even if the preferred choice is #2, “achieving a MBA degree”, the opportunity to attend “local” business management training would be advantageous to all persons in need, either to apply to the job at hand, and as a prep for B-school graduate education.

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