Basic Business Management Skills

The verb manage hails from the Italian word ‘maneggiare’ which means ‘handling’ (especially a horse), which is derived from the Latin word manus meaning hand. In the 17th and 18th centuries, meaning of the English word management evolved from the French word ‘mesnagement’. Management is the art of getting things done through people, says Mary Parker Follett.

Frenchman Henri Fayol describes management as being a composition of five functions namely planning, organizing, leading, co-ordination and control.

1. Planning: - Planning involves identification of your business goal and the way to reach it. It involves the estimation of the costs that will be incurred and evaluation of the time required to attain the business goal. A business plan has to be documented and reviewed on a regular basis. A plan is worth it if the attainment of the business goal is feasible with the planned resources. You need to communicate your plan to your employees and accept their feedback.
2. Organizing: - It involves the assignment of tasks and allocation of resources throughout the business organization. It includes determining the primary goals of the business and strategies to reach them. Divide the activities into tasks and assign the tasks to suitable and deserving employees.
3. Leading: - Leadership is a management skill in itself. A true leader inculcates feelings of confidence, admiration in the followers and a sense of commitment towards their business. A leader, through his efficiency and effectiveness, influences the others to act efficiently and effectively. Transformation is the need of the day and such leaders ought to foster flexibility. Being innovative is important for a leader and it is again a skill. Delegation is an activity of leading. It is allocation and entrustment of responsibility. A leader not only dreams but also provides the employees with a framework for the fulfillment of his dreams.
4. Coordination and Control: - They are important for the success of a business. Coordination is the process of communication to track the activities towards the goal and make decisions about the next line of action. Control is better implemented in the form of prudent guidance given to the employees by their manager. Evaluations are necessary to evaluate business performance.

Business implies being busy, doing commercially practicable and productive work. Functionally, management is the process of measurement of the quantity of work while assessing its quality.
The ability of directed thinking to develop a business is a management skill. Another attribute possessed by a skilled manager is the willingness to strive to deploy effectiveness. The management guru Peter Drucker made a distinction between efficient and effective business skills. According to him, performing an activity swiftly and economically is ‘efficient’, while doing the right thing well is ‘effective’. Good business management skills lead you towards the right goals, but doing the wrong thing is the exercise of efficiency to no avail. Learn to prioritize your business activities. Understand what’s important for the business and differentiate it from what is urgent.

As a manager, you should be able to understand the weaknesses of the organization and try to improve in them. You must be able to concentrate on the threats to your business and fight them effectively. You should have the skill to endure every setback and learn from your mistakes. Successful business development strategies used by others, help you device your own. This is when your skill to ‘experiment’ comes in the scene. Experimentation has to be accompanied by skillful judgment of your actions and results.

Business management includes management of money and time. Being a manager, you have to time yourself and schedule tasks for your team, so that deadlines are met. Management of money is an integral part of running a business. The activities of buying, selling and pricing have to be done skillfully. Business management requires a large skill set. It is everything right from planning, supervising, right up to being the spokesperson for your business.

People skills, as they are nowadays called, are important for a manager to acquire. After all, management is about handling people. Bringing out the potential in the people of your team is a skill. Stonewallers need to be dealt with, by motivating them towards constructive change. You need to improve yourself and imbibe in the minds of others that improvement is a continuous process. Learn to celebrate the success of staff members always encourage them to contribute to the fullest of their capacities, towards the business organization. This helps create enthusiasm in the staff. It’s a human psychology to work to get noticed. Human expects recognition for his work. So encourage your team members to put in their best and congratulate them for doing that. It is a good practice to assign relatively experienced employees as buddies to the new ones.

'Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.’ –Henry Ford

This is what a team is all about and developing and maintaining a team spirit is indeed a management skill.

You need to have excellent communication skills to be a good manager! Being able to convey your idea to the people, and getting work done form them is a skill. Communication encompasses a range of activities, right from internal communication in your organization up to your business negotiations. Thus it requires for you to be a good communicator for the growth of your business.

Foresight is another skill to be acquired. You need to sense trouble ahead of time. You need to be prepared for it and plan accordingly. You are required to think ahead. Think far so that your business targets seem near!

Management skills are about taking the right decisions at the right time and getting them implemented by the right people!