Preface What you should learn in Business Administration
In general business administration, you learn about the management of companies. The main keywords are management, marketing, companies, stocks, organizations, leadership, management strategy, production management, mergers and acquisitions, labor laws, financing, and everything else about business.
If you understand business administration, you will understand the management strategies that various companies are carrying out. However, a solid study of business administration does not guarantee success in practice. Because no matter how meticulously you learn the theories in business administration, you will not be able to cover all the possibilities that can occur in practice.
In order to be successful in business administration, not only business administration theory but also the ability to act flexible will be important. The idea is to understand the manual but also to be able to respond when something happens what is not in the manual.
So what does it take to act flexibly?
I think "knowing the essence" is the answer. If you understand the essence of the subject, even if you run into trouble or a problem, you can find a solution for yourself. In other words, you can go beyond the manual.
What is the "essence of things" as it relates to management?
Management is done by people for people's sake. Knowing what we as human beings think and act and what the society around us is like is the cornerstone of all subjects we learn in business administration. In other words, in order to understand business administration, it is very important to understand the nature of human beings, the nature of society and the nature of work. When you have an essential approach to things, you will have a much better chance of success in practice.
In addition to "the nature of things," there is another aspect of my class that is important. It is "living a happy life."
There are two reasons why I included thinking about happiness in my classes.
・Everyone wants to be happy.
・Verbalization and quantitative evaluation of happiness are difficult.
If everyone wants to be happy, it is fair to say that the purpose or goal of life is to be happy or to live a happy life. However, many people do not seem to have a clear vision or plan of action for happiness. The corporate analogy is that you have goals, but you don't know the clear meaning or goals of those goals.
If your company's goals are vague or confusing, you're less likely to achieve them. You can't verify whether you achieved them before you did. On the other hand, if the goal is sharp and the standards for output and evaluation are clear, it will be easier to approach the goal and you can evaluate and look back.
In this way, you can see how important it is to have a solid understanding of happiness if your goal in life is to live a happy life.
Also, happiness is difficult to verbalize and quantify. In business, there are many occasions when we are required to express (verbalize) things firmly and share them. In addition, it is important to do quantitative evaluation to verify the results and for future improvement. As part of this training, my class try to come up with a definition of "happiness" that is difficult to grasp, and then quantitatively evaluate it.
A lot of business is related to making people happy. Knowing the nature of happiness is something you absolutely need to know to make a business successful.
In this book, I developed the story by thinking about the essence of various keywords other than "happiness." What is needed is to approach and verbalize the essence of abstract themes (words).
I think it is a simple and orthodox method, but for many of the themes in this book, I have taken the following steps to clear my head while deriving the essence or definition of the subject.
①Write a lot of facts about the subject (brainstorming tips).
→ It is easy to understand if you summarize it with “AA (the subject) is BB (features and facts)”
② Categorize and organize the written features and facts (BB). Delete anything that doesn't apply to most people or is abstract.
→ Organize considering the nature and purpose of the subject.
③ After organizing, select (or consider) important keywords.
④ Write sentences by connecting the keywords.
→ When creating a definition, summarize it in a concise sentence so that it holds as a definition.
In addition, it is desirable to be able to measure the results and outcomes of the definition you create. Because being able to measure makes evaluation easier.
If the result of the definition can be measured by money, size, speed, temperature, or something else that can be quickly answered in numbers, there's no problem, but if it's difficult to measure directly, like "happiness" for example, you need to come up with a definition and then set an easy-to-understand evaluation standard.
The point of setting criteria for evaluation, which is difficult to express in numbers, is to consider the elements (criteria) that are necessary for the definition to succeed (achieve maximum effect). The specific method is as described in ① above, in which various ideas are developed and narrowed down. Once the criteria for evaluation are determined, the achievement level can be expressed in points, making evaluation and comparison easier.
