Reasoned Audacity

Your Business Blogger
at Stern School of Business
New York University Your Business Blogger was honored to lecture up and coming entrepreneurs at the Stern School of Business at New York University at the Entrepreneurial Exchange Group. The teenage Dreamer accompanied me as my intern for the day in the Big Apple.

The school sponsors this group of overachievers.

I spoke on,

1) business plans,
2) management tactics and
3) cultural challenges.

Following is the Cliff Notes version.

1) Business Plans. In any business plan the first place, the first tab investors turn to is not the numbers; not the marketing -- the first section in the plan wise men look to is the team bio's -- the leaders that will run the new enterprise. The biggest variable in the success of a business is the caliber of the management team. Who is the team? What have they done?

The best indication of future performance, is past performance.

Assemble and list your board of directors and advisors soonest in your business start-up. These mentors provide the young venture with contacts, consulting and access to capital.

A seasoned board will act to minimize risk, provide talent and keep the business capitalized.

2) Management Tactics. Your Business Blogger reviewed the most common management problems and offered basic tips. We spent some time on discipline in business, not just the prompt obedience to orders, immediate compliance, but something more. I prefer using the Army's definition of discipline which includes the initiation of appropriate action in the absence of orders.

Manage your team to always have (demand!) completed staff work. Begin by thinking of your desk as a pyramid: paper does not rest on your desk, but instead slides off -- back to the staff member who brought the piece of paper or action to you the manager.

The Dreamer at Stern Business School,
New York University
Jean Arp Seuil Configuration3) Cultural challenges. A number of students had questions about family businesses in the People's Republic of China, East Asia and the Pacific Rim. We discussed the differences in managing across cultures and managing in the Chinese business culture. See Differing Weights and MacDonald's in China. Search this site for East Asia.