Professional Management: A Must-Know Course for Workplace Elites

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Lin Qing, art editor: After graduating from Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts the year before last, I have been working as an art editor at a small magazine in Chengdu. The magazine has a circulation of less than 20,000 copies, it’s in black and white, and there’s hardly any layout design to work on. My job, like my salary, is very low. I study oil painting; it’s a decent major at art schools, but it’s difficult to find a job that matches this specialty in the job market. Some of my classmates who graduated around the same time as me went into graphic advertising design, while others started working in wedding photography; they’re all doing very well in their fields and earning decent incomes. My current job neither helps me advance professionally nor offers me a better salary; I really don’t want to keep wasting time at the magazine company. Perhaps changing careers is the only way out? I don’t like photography, nor am I interested in advertising – what career should I choose then? In the course of life, one’s career should be the most splendid chapter, especially during the period right after graduating from university, when one feels full of confidence and energy, able to experience all the joys of life in just one night. It seems that Lin Qing’s career during the adjustment period after graduation lacks a bit of brightness. Many reasons can certainly be found, but from a vocational studies perspective, there is an issue of poor management of the profession. “The \"professional investment theory\" holds that the workplace is an investment arena, and professionals make investments using their knowledge and skills. Since it’s an investment, of course there needs to be management and profitability. Ms. Lin’s career can be said to have lacked proper management. We know that without operations, how can a company be profitable? The same is true for a professional; professional management and professional outcomes are in a causal relationship. Everyone headed to the workplace at the same time; the classmates were full of energy, while Miss Lin remained calm and unshaken. The main difference probably lies in this. Ms. Lin’s situation is not uncommon in the workplace. According to our survey of 100 companies in Shenzhen, in today’s professional community, over 80% lack an awareness of professional management and do not understand the concept of career planning, with a higher proportion among women. Actually, this is also a problem that is not difficult to solve. General career experts would give such advice: strengthen professional learning; the more skills one has, the more choices one will have, and this is very important. But for Miss Lin, what’s more important is learning how to run a business professionally! Here are three countermeasures for reference: Countermeasure 1, capital revaluation—how much is one’s net worth? Reevaluate one’s basic qualities and professional strengths, and assess all of one’s knowledge and skills as well as their market value. In fact, the professional restrictions are not as strict as Lin Qing imagined; oil painting is one of the art disciplines that requires the strongest foundational skills. With the artistic skills acquired in oil painting, one can excel in the field of applied arts. As far as I know, many people in the field of applied art really wish to have a solid foundation in pure art. Judging from the successes already achieved by the students, transitioning to related industries poses no major issues. Yang Lan, one of China’s top 50 richest people according to Forbes, originally studied foreign languages; she moved from the Great Wall Hotel to CCTV and became a famous host ； She moved from being a host to the **film and television industry, and recently entered the IT sector as well; each time breaking through professional boundaries. It leaves many experts with formal training in the dust. Strategy 2: Workplace analysis — Where are you? In a promising professional environment, personal capital grows at an exponential rate ； Sowing seeds and sweating over saline-alkali land may yield nothing at all. Miss Lin needs to determine as soon as possible whether her workplace is fertile ground or barren land, and whether it truly has little value in terms of development. If that’s the case, she should leave immediately and not waste her youth there. Strategy three: Goal analysis — What is the intention? It’s okay if the previous step wasn’t successful; life is long, and everyone inevitably takes some detours. What matters is taking the right step next. Be sure to have a clear plan before taking new action. Based on the principle of comparative advantage, it is recommended that Miss Lin focus on her strengths in oil painting as a core skill and choose fields related to it. This may require additional skill capital, such as computer graphics skills, product development skills, and marketing skills. If you move closer, you can work as an art editor at a better newspaper or magazine; if you’re a bit further away and don’t want to enter the advertising industry, you can also go into the IT sector and work as a graphic designer, 3D designer, or web designer. Going even further, product development and marketing for art pieces open up entirely new possibilities. In short, the key issue is learning how to manage. Having grasped the principles of business management, one can write the word “success” in any notebook.