This month we’ve been focusing on the key management skills good managers need to master. Most managers have been promoted to their roles due to their mastery of the ‘mechanics’ of doing their role rather than the ‘dynamics’ (how they do it).

Terry H. Hill in his article: ’12 business skills you need to master’, published in business.com states that there are a range of skills that are most important for success. Some of these include Finance Skills, Time Management Skills and Analytical skills.

• Finance Skills

Wow – this one frightens me no end (I don’t know about you). So how do you improve your finance skills if it’s not a strength? Rebecca Knight, in her article ‘How to improve your finance skills (even if you hate numbers)’ advises the following:

• • Learn the lingo

The most important finance terms to understand are how to measure profitability, EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization; operating income, revenue, and operating expenses. You can source these from a finance textbook or even google them.

• • Understand the balance sheet

Richard Ruback, a professor at Harvard Business School and the co-author of the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business advises to reproduce the numbers on your balance sheet (hand-written or electronically) so you can best understand what your business spends and how it makes money.

• Time Management Skills

If you often feel stressed you that you can’t complete all your work tasks, improving your time management skills could help you become an even better manager. Rinkesh Kukreja in his article: ’10 ways to improve your time management skills’ advises to firstly delegate all tasks which shouldn’t be allocated to you. Once this has been done, you should rank tasks against their importance and urgency, to determine the order in which each of them should be actioned.

• Analytical Skills

If you have strong analytical thinking skills, they will serve you well throughout your life, according to Zulfah Abrahams, author of the article: ‘5 Simple Ways to Improve your Analytical Thinking.’ Abrahams recommends the following:

• • Active reading (critically thinking about what you are reading)
  • Taking a walk outside and taking in your surroundings
  • Practising mathematical puzzles involving logic, such as Sodoku
  • Playing brain games such as chess, bridge and backgammon. Any game involving strategy is a great way to practise your analytical thinking skills
  • Making the most of personal encounters. This can mean asking questions of the people that you meet to see what you can learn from them.

If you require support improving your management skills or those of your team, speak to the HR Consulting team at Flexi Personnel.