Business Acumen Blog

Companies are trying to save costs in big ways—such as reducing capital expenditures, eliminating unprofitable product lines, and in all-too-frequent cases, reducing their numbers of employees.

Years ago a colleague of mine was consulting with a group of senior NASA managers at Cape Canaveral. He tried to explain, in simple terms, a somewhat involved organizational change strategy. They seemed confused. In an effort to clarify, he said, “Please don’t try to make this more complicated than necessary; it’s relatively simple. It’s not rocket science.” To which they sincerely answered, “We wish it were. We could understand it better!”

Many employees view their business much like rocket science—much complexity, many different moving parts difficult to follow and fit together, hard-to-understand data and formulas, communications in confusing language resembling more Greek than English.

One of the main things I set out to do when I started Acumen Learning was to simplify how any business fundamentally operates to make money and to sustain profitable growth over the long run.  I hope to help you to communicate more effectively with managers, other employees, and senior executives using language that ties your ideas and efforts to the important objectives of your company’s leadership.

Perfecting your business acumen will simplify the complexity of business. With time and effort understanding your business will be less like rocket science.