I just began reading the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. One thing that has always annoyed me since I began learning Architecture freshman year of high school has been the lack of business discussion. Luckily, I had the time to take a Construction Management major and graduate from it this year. This major required many business classes.
Throughout every business class I took I thought to myself, "Why are these classes not requirements for the Architecture major?" The more I learn and grow in this industry and educational field the more I realize how important it is.
I would highly recommend taking courses such as accounting, introduction to business, and business communication if you have time. I have found learning things such as the correct way to write business proposals much more useful than Calculus 3 in the field of Architecture.
While reading the book, "From Good to Great" (which I highly recommend to all of my readers) I find myself making many juxtapositions between the subject matter of the book and Architecture, Revit, and BIM.
Su, over at Just Practising, found herself making interesting analogies as well:
How to be Happy in Business
Picture two animals: a fox and a hedgehog. Which are you?
An ancient Greek parable distinguishes between foxes, which know many small things, and hedgehogs, which know one big thing. All good-to-great leaders, it turns out, are hedgehogs. They know how to simplify a complex world into a single, organizing idea—the kind of basic principle that unifies, organizes, and guides all decisions.
That’s not to say hedgehogs are simplistic. Like great thinkers, who take complexities and boil them down into simple, yet profound, ideas (Adam Smith and the invisible hand, Darwin and evolution), leaders of good-to-great companies develop a Hedgehog Concept that is simple but that reflects penetrating insight and deep understanding
Wouldn’t we all want to take what we like doing, do it well and be paid to do it?
Step 1: Be Strategic: See the whole picture.
Jim Collins introduced the “hedgehog concept” in his book Good to Great. Read more by Jim Collins
Thanks to Greg at
Revit3D.com for the find.
