Organisation-Building
@tags:: #lit✍/📰️article/highlights
@links:: career profile, operations, organization-building,
@ref:: Organisation-Building
@author:: Benjamin Todd
=this.file.name
Reference
=this.ref
Notes
(highlight:: A high-impact career using organisation-building skills typically involves these rough stages:
- Building generally useful organisational skills, such as operations, people management, fundraising, administration, software systems, finance, etc.
- Then applying those skills to help build (or found) high-impact organisations)
- View Highlight
-
(highlight:: Organisation builders typically have skills in areas like:
• Operations management
• Project management (including setting objectives, metrics, etc.)
• People management and coaching (Some manager jobs require specialised skills, but some just require general management-associated skills like leadership, interpersonal communication, and conflict resolution.)
• Executive leadership (setting and achieving organisation-wide goals, making top-level decisions about budgeting, etc.)
• Entrepreneurship
• Recruiting
• Fundraising
• Marketing (which also benefits from communications skills)
• Communications and public relations (which also benefits from communications skills)
• Human resources
• Office management
• Events management
• Assistant and administrative work
• Finance and accounting
• Corporate and nonprofit law)
- View Highlight
-
(highlight:: Some common initial indicators of fit might include:
• You have an optimisation mindset. You frequently notice how things could be done more efficiently and have a strong internal drive to prevent avoidable errors and make things run more smoothly.
• You intuitively engage in systems thinking and enjoy going meta. This is a bit difficult to summarise, but involves things like: you’d notice when people ask you similar questions multiple times and then think about how to prevent the issue from coming up again. For example: “Can you give me access to this doc” turns into “What went wrong such that this person didn’t already have access to everything they need? How can we improve naming conventions or sharing conventions in the future?”
• You’re reliable, self-directed, able to manage your time well, and you can create efficient and productive plans and keep track of complex projects.
• You might also be good at learning quickly and have high attention to detail.)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::All of these resonate! A failure mode of this kind of mindset is over-optimizing or optimizing on the wrong/less impactful things.]
(highlight:: We think you should be ambitious when deciding career steps, and it often makes sense to pursue high-upside options first when you’re doing some career exploration.
This is particularly true if you:
• Have an idea that you’ve seriously thought about, stress tested, and got positive feedback on from relevant experts
• Have real energy and excitement for your idea (not for the idea of being an entrepreneur)
• Understand that you’re likely to fail, and have good backup plans in place for that)
- View Highlight
-
(highlight:: In particular, look for organisations that:
- Implement an effective solution, or one that has a good chance of having a big impact (even if it might not work)
- Have the potential to grow
- Are run by a great team
- Are in need of your skills
These organisations will most often be nonprofits, but they could also be research institutes, political organisations, or for-profit companies with a social mission.1)
- View Highlight
-
dg-publish: true
created: 2024-07-01
modified: 2024-07-01
title: Organisation-Building
source: reader
@tags:: #lit✍/📰️article/highlights
@links:: career profile, operations, organization-building,
@ref:: Organisation-Building
@author:: Benjamin Todd
=this.file.name
Reference
=this.ref
Notes
(highlight:: A high-impact career using organisation-building skills typically involves these rough stages:
- Building generally useful organisational skills, such as operations, people management, fundraising, administration, software systems, finance, etc.
- Then applying those skills to help build (or found) high-impact organisations)
- View Highlight
-
(highlight:: Organisation builders typically have skills in areas like:
• Operations management
• Project management (including setting objectives, metrics, etc.)
• People management and coaching (Some manager jobs require specialised skills, but some just require general management-associated skills like leadership, interpersonal communication, and conflict resolution.)
• Executive leadership (setting and achieving organisation-wide goals, making top-level decisions about budgeting, etc.)
• Entrepreneurship
• Recruiting
• Fundraising
• Marketing (which also benefits from communications skills)
• Communications and public relations (which also benefits from communications skills)
• Human resources
• Office management
• Events management
• Assistant and administrative work
• Finance and accounting
• Corporate and nonprofit law)
- View Highlight
-
(highlight:: Some common initial indicators of fit might include:
• You have an optimisation mindset. You frequently notice how things could be done more efficiently and have a strong internal drive to prevent avoidable errors and make things run more smoothly.
• You intuitively engage in systems thinking and enjoy going meta. This is a bit difficult to summarise, but involves things like: you’d notice when people ask you similar questions multiple times and then think about how to prevent the issue from coming up again. For example: “Can you give me access to this doc” turns into “What went wrong such that this person didn’t already have access to everything they need? How can we improve naming conventions or sharing conventions in the future?”
• You’re reliable, self-directed, able to manage your time well, and you can create efficient and productive plans and keep track of complex projects.
• You might also be good at learning quickly and have high attention to detail.)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::All of these resonate! A failure mode of this kind of mindset is over-optimizing or optimizing on the wrong/less impactful things.]
(highlight:: We think you should be ambitious when deciding career steps, and it often makes sense to pursue high-upside options first when you’re doing some career exploration.
This is particularly true if you:
• Have an idea that you’ve seriously thought about, stress tested, and got positive feedback on from relevant experts
• Have real energy and excitement for your idea (not for the idea of being an entrepreneur)
• Understand that you’re likely to fail, and have good backup plans in place for that)
- View Highlight
-
(highlight:: In particular, look for organisations that:
- Implement an effective solution, or one that has a good chance of having a big impact (even if it might not work)
- Have the potential to grow
- Are run by a great team
- Are in need of your skills
These organisations will most often be nonprofits, but they could also be research institutes, political organisations, or for-profit companies with a social mission.1)
- View Highlight
-