Last week, I finished The 10-Day MBA, written by Steven Silbiger, and I would recommend it for anyone working in a community job in the for-profit world. Adrian Speyer recommended it last year on a webinar hosted by Vanilla Forums saying the book helps cms understand the jargon and businesses to become more successful in a community role.
The bottom line of why I am recommending this book: It helped me better understand my stakeholders’ decisions around my function and our community, and it gave me tactics around being more business-minded when planning, budgeting, and running our community.
I bought a physical copy of the book on Amazon for around $18. It took me about a month to finish its 450 pages, mainly because I took notes and only read it for about an hour a day, five days a week. The book is a little dry, but if you read while keeping your company and community’s lens, it helps.
The pros and cons of the 10-Day MBA are below:
Pros:
- You receive an in-depth breakdown of how companies are structured and how they run.
- It clarifies the way companies make decisions, especially financial ones.
- The book defines the jargon and the acronyms that you hear when meeting with leaders in the company.
- There are many tips and takeaways you can apply to your community and your job function.
- The book contains diagrams explaining some of the more complex materials (especially finance) to make it more digestible.
- Each chapter is divided into specific business areas like marketing, finance, ethics, and organizational behavior (plus more) and leaves nothing uncovered.
- If you are looking to connect your work cross-functionally to other departments at your company, this book helps explain those departments’ functions.
- It makes clear what the community worker is up against when operating within a larger organization, especially if the ROI of your community isn’t crystal clear.
Cons:
- Silbiger wrote the book in 2012, and some of the examples feel dated.
- Some of the subject matter reads as non-inclusive and sexist, especially the business-themed cartoons included in the book. However, I don’t know if it’s the author or the world of business that’s driving this. Perhaps it’s both.
- About a quarter of the reading is around complicated math, and I enjoyed that aspect; however, you may not.
- It’s academic-focused and could use more real-world examples.
- It’s sometimes a challenging read.
- It’s the 4th edition of the book, and it could use another edition to update it for 2021 and beyond.
Have you read this book or another MBA-focused book that helped you level-up on your community work? Please feel free to share it in the comment section.
