Whether you run an engineering firm, an architecture firm, an optometrist practice, a law firm or an accounting firm, you are likely highly trained in your profession. You have years of rigorous schooling teaching you all of the things you need to know to be the best possible professional. What you don’t learn professionally, you gain from the experienced professional you work with when you start your career.
When I started my first career as a chemical engineer, I was hired by Archer Daniels Midland to work in a corn processing plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I came in with a good education and quickly was exposed to the application of my craft and trained by everyone I worked with. I took the theories I learned on paper and quickly saw how they applied in the field. However, as I was turned loose in a department to apply my professional knowledge, I soon discovered that I was being put in a position in which I had very little training. I was managing people.
Looking at my career, my ability to lead, motivate, supervise, and manage people was the most critical skill to my success. Yet I was managing people with no training. I knew the theory behind how pumps could transport liquids through pipes, but I didn’t know how to motivate the person who ran those pumps.
This is an incredibly common problem. You go to school to learn how to do what you do, but your education probably lacks significantly in managing people or even managing a business or practice.
That is where our Management Seminar comes to play. We encourage you to focus on your business and management by getting out of the office. Join us at our upcoming Management Seminar.
