The Interplay of Skills and Character in Business/Project Management

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Many people have erroneously thought that the main thing that's involved in business success is capital. I had a protege sometime whose only reason for not venturing into the business space was capital. I tried to dissuade him to acquire skills yet but he insisted on capital. He later had access to a huge capital, about $7,500, started several streams of business, but sad, today, no remains of that capital can be found. He was only 24 years of age when that capital entered his hands. He wasn't too young to handle the cash. His fault is that he lacked the skill to manage capital.

I've personally been drown in the depths of losses in business engagement due to character and skill flaws. Particularly, I had issues with customer management. This made many despise my skills. I was confident with my skills but wasn't competent with managing clients which actually affected my marketing outcomes. At another instance, I made an impulsive investment which lacked adequate knowledge and expertise and lost all the investment capital with interest.

I sum these character and skill factor into these two - competence and confidence. Every entrepreneur and businessman need to understand "competence" and "confidence" and how to use the duo in building his business facility. Each cannot stand all alone. Both are needed in a good mix to build a successful venture.

The competent guy is the the skilled guy who has amassed the right knowledge to run his business and project to a successful profiting level. The confident guy is that who is ready to risk his skills, capital to actually reach where his knowledge should take him to.

• Don't be the competent fellow who's not confident in taking business risk.
• Don't be the Confident fellow who's not competent in engaging his skills.

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1. Spending is a Character that needs Skills
Knowing what you need isn't enough to inform a use of capital. Spending in business may sometimes be motivated by ego, unhealthy competitions. Whereas, research, accounting, analysis, feedback interpretations, negotiation skills and more are meant to guide our spending in a project or business. Not everyone are able to analyse then opportunity cost of an investment.

2. Investment decision-making is a Skill that needs Character
Knowledge alone is never enough to take an investment decision. It takes a strong character of faith and esteem to release the funds. The art and science of frugality must as well e learnt to control impulsive investment drive.

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Always maintain the Balance

Balancing is a crucial "personality" aspect of an entrepreneur and business man that must not be treated with levity. Learning often does not teach balance but an addition of experience does. Looking up to theories may not be a best fit due to the "non-idealness of situations. There must be a deliberate iteration by every business person before fully integrating theories.

I would be glad to share thoughts with you on the best strategies to balance skill and character for successful business and project execution. Let's maximize the comments section of this blog post.