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Hello to everyone who's a fellow fan of the Manager Tools podcast!

Just discovered Manager Tools (all podcasts in general really) a few weeks ago, have to say I'm loving it. I'm certainly not a manager at the moment, just hoping to be one in the future. More details on my motivation follow, I'm afraid this turned into a long posting :D

Thanks to some aggresive parenting, I graduated from college at the age of 20, in 2005. Caltech, B.S. in Engineering & Applied Science: took classes that would help me understand "how things work" and learn how to make new things.

I've been working since for a medical technology start-up company. The company is developing a device that will provide custom, sterile wound dressings to patients with chronic wounds. For the first year or so I was working for a first-time manager, who was managing our engineering team of five (2 of whom he used to be peers with in previous engineering companies). To say the least, I was not impressed with his management skills, and I have some true horror stories I may share later.

Eventually our company successfully developed a prototype that we began installing in wound care clinics for trial testing, to determine how our machine would fit into the workflow of patient treatment. I had the opportunity to go to a clinic at the UCLA Medical Center for a five week trial of our machine. There I was able to get feedback from the nurses as well as interact with a lot of potential partners for the development of our company's business. The problems of business and marketing were much more interesting than the next mechanical bracket we had to design for the machine.

I decided to try and get more involved in the business side of things, but I was met with some impressions that people were thinking, "what's this engineer doing asking me about this, he should be back working on his computer." Even to the point where I was told I wasn't going to be able to look at the business plan for our company. So I decided to go back to school and get some more background on business plans, etc. Also, after working I realized how great it was to be in a situation where all you're required to do is LEARN! When I was in school, all I wanted to do was get out and start working, how dumb was that?

Found a unique program that combined aspects of a business school with technical work as well, the only program in existence for something called a Master of Bioscience(you can see more at www.kgi.edu). I ended up negotiating to the point where I am now the only student in the program who won't be paying any of the $37,000/year tuition (pretty rare for a professional school I gather).

Now I'm heading back to focus on the Business of Bioscience and entrepreneurship. I'm planning to start a technology company some day, and realize that people skills are what I want to develop the most. In lieu of a mentor (I certainly didn't want to use my initial manager for this role after he sent out an email to our engineering team at 4PM on Friday afternoon telling everyone they'd be coming in on the weekend to help meet the next deadline...we were only sitting about 15 feet away from him!), I'm listening to Manager Tools podcasts as much as possible and now starting to read the forums.

A lot of the podcasts I've listened to so far have strengthened my opinion about why I go to work, and why I think we're here on Earth in general: [b]To interact with people.[/b]

Anyways, I guess I should wrap this up, as it's getting fairly long. Soon I will take some online DISC evaluation so I can add a cool signature block to my posts with "7 - 7 - 7 - 7" in it.

jhack's picture

Welcome to the forums, and if you write a post that long, you're definitely not a 7-7-7-7!

terrih's picture

Welcome!

The mere thought of a chronic wound makes me shudder... I admire you for your work to help people with that problem! :)

That being said, since you've found you have a desire for the people side of the biotechnology biz, more power to you. That needs to be in the mix too.

All the best to you & keep coming back!
Terri

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

Welcome to the forums. Question to ask yourself: "Do I like people." If the answer is yes, you'll be a good manager. If the answer is no, you'd have your work cut out.

You sound like a yes to me. 8)

MattJBeckwith's picture
Licensee BadgeTraining Badge

Couldn't agree with Will more!

Welcome to the forums. I would be very afraid of anyone that came out 7-7-7-7.

sklosky's picture

I've been thinking of changing my signature block to read:

8-8-8-8
"Big Fat Liar"

:)

Mark's picture
Admin Role Badge

Hans-

Welcome. You are sooo much smarter than me! I grew up out near Cal Tech, and all of the REALLY REALLY REALLY smart kids TRIED to get in there (and failed). Richard Feynmann taught there...he's my favorite scientist of all time. If I had a Physics Hall of Fame, he'd been pitching, and Einstein would be playing shortstop.

Glad you're here, and glad we're providing value.

Mark

Mark's picture
Admin Role Badge

Love the DISC humor.

Alas, you've probably noted that the combination of all of us having all 4 tendencies, and having a 1-7 scale, if you add up everyone's ACTUAL scores, the range of the possible totals is about 14 - 18. It's a quick validation that a number you're looking at makes sense.

You can't be high in everything...it wouldn't mean anything.

Not that us High D's haven't tried to Kobayashi Maru it.

Mark

hans111384's picture

Thanks for the welcome everyone! I'm excited to try out new networking skills as I meet a whole new community at school. Plus I can apparently audit courses at "The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management", since my school is affiliated with the Claremont Colleges. =) Seems that everyone thinks very highly of Drucker, no doubt the school named after him is good too!

As you may have expected from the clarification of the many points in my bio, I am a high-C.
First DISC test results:
4-2-4-6
Objective Thinker

hans111384's picture

I'm also working on a little post topic about effective management skills relate to the concept of the "table boss" at a poker game. Few people have the charisma and skills to control a poker cash game, but watching it in action is pretty interesting. Send me a PM if you're a fellow poker player and have any thoughts on this.

jhack's picture

My game is Bridge, sorry....

hans111384's picture

I'm a bridge fan myself...think I picked up 0.66 master points at the 2000 national championships way back when :wink: