Ask Christa! How Can I Feel Less Intimidated by Business? (S3E25)

Introduction and Listener Question

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today’s listener question reminds me of when I was in high school, and college as an undergrad, and even AFTER I earned my MBA—my Master’s in Business Administration—I still asked this question of myself… THAT’s how common it is.

The listener question is: “How can I feel less intimidated about business? I’m a scientist, not a business person. I want to learn more about the business because I want to get more involved in creating science for patients, but I feel like I can never be a business person. It feels like a club I don’t belong in, like everyone knows everything and it goes over my head. It’s overwhelming to me.”

Business is Far More Simple Than Most Think (and we do that to ourselves…)

In the most simple terms, business is about generating interest from your potential customers—then fueling that interest so that they BUY your product or service. After that, it’s about doing the work to continue that cycle, and managing the process in such a way that you receive money when you’re supposed to, pay your bills when you’re supposed to, and have money left over to continue growing your business. 

That money leftover—that’s your profit, and the more profitable your business is, the easier it is to grow, develop, and expand for your clients. 

Again, I’m simplifying, but this is the gist of what business is about, and back when I taught graduate STEM students about business in highly complex industries, I used to always say, "business is a process-- that's all it is." 

The problem I see most people struggle with is a perception that business is hard. Or that only a few people can be good at it. 

Business isn't hard, though. Even if you aren’t a naturally deep or critical thinker, or a natural problem solver, there are roles you can have in business where you can feel satisfied with your work AND understand business. 

You know what’s hard about business, though? People. And business is about people, starting with your customer all the way through to your most difficult team member or your worst performer or a toxic boss. The better you are with people, and the better your people are with other people, the more success you and your organization will have. 

So, you want to be good at business? Know how to be good with people, then learn about what makes businesses successful--- ALL businesses, no matter size, industry, or customer.

 It really is that easy, because believe it or not, everyone is a business person.

Everyone is a “Business Person”

I talk about this a lot: You don’t have to go to business school to understand business. You see, most people think “understanding business” means financial modeling, spreadsheets, meetings, and speaking jargon.

But if you've ever:

· Helped organize a fundraiser

· Managed your household budget 

· Organized a party

· Made a side hustle work

· Streamlined a messy process at work-- or at home

· Encouraged someone to take a risk and supported them through it

...you already know more about business than you think

Why Does it Feel Like Club? (in part…. Hollywood…)

But I realize it often feels like a club. The suits. The business speak. The cold offices—literally, most of them are freezing!

But business is not an elite club where you need special code words to be a part of it. OK, some places are like that and some still try to make it seem like only those born with business capabilities can do it well, but... no. That's bunk. And these days you can see those kinds of cultures from a mile away. 

But don’t buy into the notion that only certain people “belong” in business. THAT is what creates a feeling of intimidation, or at least perpetuates it. We’re the ones who create feelings of being intimidated based on our experiences of what has… intimidated us.

And yes, business definitely has its own language, and I don't mean the buzzwords. I mean the common language of business such as the economics of supply and demand, market analytics, corporate communications, compliance across ALL functions, General and Administration, Profit & Loss Statements (or P&L-- there are some in charge of P&L), through put time…

But again, those can be learned. It's like baking, or knitting, or playing music, or reading... it can be learned, and the cool think about business is that it can also be immediately applied.

By the way, you can find a lot of content online to help with those basics. I’ll include some in the show notes.

So resist the urge to label yourself as a non-business person, especially if you think you don’t know or understand business.

Nah, I’m an engineer, I’m not a business person… 

Or like our listener: I’m a scientist, I’m not a business person… 

I’m in manufacturing, I’m not a business person…

Why? Why aren’t you a business person? 

This is how we reinforce the divide of who’s a business person and who isn’t a business person, and in my experience, there is no divide. 

In actual businesses, managers, not finance, own their budgets. Managers, not HR, hire and fire people. Managers bring their laptops to and from work—you don’t have IT handing it to you when you walk in, and taking it back when you walk out?

What I’ve seen a lot of is people who don’t want to think of themselves as a business person for whatever reason. 

Maybe they’ve bought into the Hollywood hoo-hah of business people being cold and unfeeling and hifalutin and greedy. But I’ve known scientists who are like that, too. I’ve known leaders in higher education who are like that, too. I’ve know the most un-business-branded people be exactly like that.

It’s not BUSINESS that makes people cold and unfeeling and hifalutin and greedy. They’re already like that. They just happen to ALSO be like that at work, but I assure you—it’s role agnostic.

So break out of the feeling that you are excluded from the business club. Resist the urge to give into that kind of thinking. There is no club, and if you feel there is one where you work, start your own club. 

“The business scientists club.”

I like that sound of that.

It Only Goes Over Your Head Because You Don’t Know It Yet

Here’s another myth buster: you also don't have to know ALL about a business to be good at it. MBAs know ALL about business... well, these days there are concentrations to reduce the learning time, so some MBAs actually may not know ALL about business. 

They'll know a lot about a specific aspect of business plus a few general items... 

But MBAs with General Management degrees (like me)-- we learn about all aspects of a business and then continue to study it over a lifetime, and I'm here to say: unless you intend to fix businesses and make them healthy, or start them up and lead them from infancy through growth, there simply isn't a need to know everything about how a business runs. That’s why you hire other people, to round out the team.

Additional Resources 

For your resources, I’ve included sites that offer free online courses from a variety of higher education institutes where you can go deeper in your learning as you wish.

I also want to point out that for a nominal fee, you can subscribe to LinkedIn Career—even if just for a month—and take advantage of LinkedIn Learning, which offers an enormous digital (or online) learning library with excellent content to learn about business. You can sort by length of time, too. 

And a quick note about LinkedIn Learning: it started out as Linda Learning many years ago. They partnered with LinkedIn as a pilot program for LinkedIn to offer professional development, and when that went pretty well, LinkedIn bought Linda Learning and it became LinkedIn Learning. 

It’s important to know this because LinkedIn Learning was originally designed to be a professional development platform, and it shows. It’s excellent. I make it a point to go onto LinkedIn Learning to keep myself fresh and sharp on a variety of skills. And again, a one-month subscription could offer high-level professional development learning about business for a smaller cost than other online learning platforms, so if it’s something you are interested in and you can responsibly make the investment short-term, check it out.

Last, I included a short YouTube video from the Otherword's Series (by Storied) about where office jargon comes from. Here’s a hint: military and sports…. AND at minute 4:08 the host, Dr. Erica Brozofsky, a sociolinguist, talks about why some of the jargon prevails and how it can establish status within the workplace—and here’s a surprise—it’s not usually by those in leadership positions….

Final Thoughts and Submit Your Questions

Here are my final thoughts. To be successful at business, you need to know how to be good with people. That’s the first part. Maybe it takes work for you to do that—you don’t need to be good with people, you just need to know HOW to be good with people.

After that? The biggest skill someone needs to get smart about business is what you need to get smart about ANYTHING: curiosity, not confidence. Curiosity will get you to learn, and the confidence will grow with the learning, especially when you realize it’s not as distant from you as you assumed it to be. As you perpetuated it to be, like so many others do. 
 
 

Before I learned about business, I did it, too. I’m first generation to get a four year degree, I never knew anything about business because I wasn’t exposed to it, and I didn’t know anyone who was in a “business position.” But I got curious. I learned. And I realized quickly: wow, I AM a business person. And you might feel that way, too.

So this week, I encourage you to notice how much of your day-to-day life is built around business principles:

·       How decisions are made

·       How people get “on the same page” (or not)

·       How you organize your home life

·       How you set goals and check to see if they’re getting done

And if you're feeling bold and are presently working in a company—for profit or not for profit-- start  asking questions like:

·       "How does our company make big decisions about the final budget?"

·       "Where can I check the status of this year's company goals and our future bigger goals?" 

·       "What's the best way to learn more about other departments?"

You will see how easy it is to learn about business, and THAT will ease your intimidation of it.

Alright, that’s a wrap—Season 3 is underway!!

Remember: to submit your question, go to my show’s website, AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, and click on the Submit a Question button. While you’re there, FOLLOW my show, which is available wherever you listen to your podcasts, although it’s also on YouTube under Ask Christa.

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Thank you—your questions are fueling my show, and I appreciate your support. And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!