Management Skills: Personal, Professionally, Entrepreneurial

 

As a child I wanted to be a physician. The common story of a little girl who got really sick at least a couple of times every year and wanted to help others. A little girl who wanted to help prevent others from experiencing the pain she endured so often. Oddly enough, or maybe not so much, one of the things that caused me to want to be a medical doctor also made me decide not to become one.

My second hospital stay was long, painful and uncomfortable. I was 19 years old. It was close to 3 weeks long. The hospital beds were uncomfortable, I kept losing weight and I was in constant pain with a constant fever. That summer, a few months after I was discharged, I decided I no longer wanted to be a doctor because I could not imagine being in a hospital every day. Although I totally understood being a doctor working in a hospital is different from being a patient in a hospital, I couldn’t work towards that childhood dream any longer. The decision was made.

Managing Personal

During that hospital stay I was diagnosed with Crohn’s. This was more than 2 decades ago and there are many stories I can write about living with Crohn’s but I’m guessing that’s not why you are here. And I’m also guessing you are wondering how any of this has to do with translating your skills or managing.

I learned to live with Crohn’s. Of course the diagnosis was scary and I had self-doubt in the beginning. Crohn’s dictated my sleep, when and what I ate and I didn’t know how I would be feeling the following day, sometimes even the following hour. There was so much I didn’t know. So I learned to take one day at a time, I learned to focus on my current to-do list and I avoided anything that might make my symptoms worse. I learned to manage my life with Crohn’s.

Managing Professionally

Managing my life with Crohn’s is much like what we do in our professional lives. Some of us are managers, wherein we control or direct others. Oftentimes, the manager tells the subordinate what needs to be done day to day, helps the subordinate focus on getting the immediate job done and tries to avoid issues along the way. In essence, similar to how I learned to manage life with Crohn’s.

Management skills are translatable

• As we manage at work and as we manage our personal lives, we naturally improve and develop our management skills.
• My new life with Crohn’s required management and your new entrepreneur life will also require management.
• Crohn’s improved some of my management skills and I have translated that into my professional life. For example, I learned a lot about how to avoid issues (flares), which is a key aspect of project risk management.
• You have management skills from your professional and personal life that you can use in your new entrepreneur life. You just need to recognize them.

Managing Entrepreneurial

Please be confident that although you don’t have all the details worked out yet, nor should you; you have enough to start the transition. Start where you are with what you have. You are enough and you have a lot of the skills you need to be successful, including management skills. You have been improving and gaining these skills for years through your work and/or personal life. You just have to translate them like I translated avoiding Crohn’s symptoms to project risk management. One last thing: leadership is more often associated with entrepreneurship than management. It’s true you will need to have leadership skills. But the fact of the matter is you need to also be a great manager. And you already are!

Please do me a favor: take a moment to leave a comment on management skills, either gained from your personal or professional life that you can use on your entrepreneur adventure.