Free Business Essays - Business occupies about 1/3 of people's lives. "Work" is simply where business happens
I. Business occupies about 1/3 of people’s lives. “Work” is simply where business happens. In fact, if you are anywhere aside from your home or your car, you are most likely at someone’s business. One is nearly always either spending or making money. It is because of the ubiquitous nature of business that it appeals to me. “Business” is simply fundamental to everything.
As a junior employee at a bank, I have not had the experience to be involved in crafting clever strategies and initiatives. Despite this, I have been involved in executing them. As US author John Steinbeck notes, “…the best laid plans of mice and men are often gone awry…”, quite likely due to a poorly executed or communicated plan. It is in these regards that I have had my limited experiences in business initiatives. Specifically, I diligently worked to be a part of the team that successfully implemented the strategic plans of the bank to be a top competitor in customer service so that the plans of the Board were not “gone awry”. This was an important learning in that, as I progress in my career, I must learn to remember that the best boardroom solutions are not always the best front-line solutions.
II. One of the most challenging ways in which I have sought to learn and grow personally to work diligently to “learn more”. For example, many students who are given an assignment in a field of some interest, simply so the assignment. Given that I am continually seeking to grow personally as well as develop professionally, I took license with the occasions of being given an assignment to learn more than what was asked. I wanted to, in the words of the American radio broadcasting icon Paul Harvey, learn “the rest of the story”. Specifically, an textbook reading for an assignment might cite a particular study or author. It would not be uncommon for me to then seek the source in order to better understand the issues and to have access, in some small way, to the same information the author of the textbook had, thus learning not only the practical results but intellectually seeking and questioning additional information in order to fully understand the issues.
III. Relationships are the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a life. The relationships that one develops are the core of who I am. My relationships are a reflection of me and thus, just as a farmer carefully cultivates a field in hopes of a bountiful harvest, so too do I regard the relationships that I enter.
There are many relationships that I value and have lasting significance. Aside from the obvious, i.e., parents, I particularly value relationships with particular professors. While it may seem that I would most like the ones in whose class I received the highest marks, it is not always so. Just as in other relationships, those in which there is conflict, challenge, struggle and eventual success are perhaps more highly treasure that those relationships that were “easy”.
Conversely, it is important to consider that relationships are a “two-way street” and like many successful sales persons will indicate, “…the more [prospects] you have, the more you get”. In the same way, relationships that “carry me forward” are not always those that I have “received” the most but rather, at least in some cases, are those in which I have “given” the most. Whether that is a child, a favorite pet or any ‘marginalized’ person, I take with me a sense of a relationship that, on the surface, may appear to be lop-sided in value. What is unseen by many is, for the very reason of what I “gave” rather that what I “took”, it is these relationships that are perhaps the most valuable of all.
IV. A student with an economic major could be said to have acquired a solid study in a quantitatively-based, philosophical-perspective of the rationale for the majority of human behavior. Such coursework lays the groundwork for virtually any business endeavor or advanced schooling. Despite this broad perspective and vast utility, as one approaches the workforce, it is necessary to more narrowly define this so that it is more closely aligned with the positions as they are commonly listed. Given that economics is simply the business of people, a rational choice is focus on the “business” aspect and the most fundamental area in these regards is that of accounting and finance.
These fields are truly the working end of economic decisions in that the choices of individuals and organizations are expressed in dollars, pounds, yen or some denomination of currency. By ‘specializing’ in accounting or finance, one has literally an inside view of the workings of the firm. Such as perspective, depending on the specific angle of the position, can yield a fine view of microeconomic behavior in how individual consumers voice their opinions with their wages, casting votes in such a fashion as to eventually set market demand.
Alternatively, depending on the specific position, a career in accounting and/or finance can provide the macroeconomic perspective of entire firms and markets, setting and responding to a global market and all the player’s respective fiscal and monetary policies. As such, a career in accounting and finance is a logical extension that an economics background lends to a of the study of how firms and people interact.
V. As a recent graduate with a degree in economics, I felt well-prepared to add value a firm as a new-hire. Though I feel I did and continue to add value, I had missed a very important idea… my degree and my job was merely a ‘license to learn’. While performing my position well, I took opportunity consider the larger issues and opportunities for improvement. By silently playing the common game of “If I was in charge…”, I realized that for some issues, I though I could have achieved a better result. However, for others, I realized that I needed, in essence, a larger ‘toolbox’.
A larger toolbox is representative of attendance at a quality MBA program in which I can study and bring my abilities and weaknesses to the table to honestly work to improve my abilities so that I can add greater value to my self and the organization with which I am affiliated.
