This is basically my job so here goes:
Get certified for the best management practices, these have been established by years of trial and error using a simplified version of the scientific method called Plan-Do-Check-Act.
The HPO Center Has done a lot of research on why companies stay in business for a long time, and how they remain market leader. The result is 35 rules that when followed give you a higher chance of being a long lasting market leader.
Another methodology you can get certified for is Six Sigma which revolves around reducing the number of errors in your processes, this is often combined with Lean which focuses on removing those things from your process that do not add any value to the end product. These two combined ensure the customer gets a good product or service at minimal costs to you.
Finally, most of your value will be in the form of knowledge, documents, processes, etc... Companies like Knowledge Values specialize in tools and teaching surrounding the management of this knowledge.
All the idea's here combine to form a strategy and mindset for creating a company (process) that can have a high chance of success an profit with a lower investment and risk of bankruptcy. Note that the whole thing stands or falls with how willing your customers are to get your product, and how good you are at making them want it. In the topics i mentioned this issue does not get a lot of attention.
The concepts i mentioned are often used by companies to become or stay in list like the forbs500.
One final note, whenever you optimize for some metric, that metric becomes less and less reliable, this is called Goodhart's Law. The topic's above do go into this a little bit, but my main advice would be to always find 3 interconnected and if possible contradictory metrics so you see what happens to the other 2 when you optimize for one. An example:
Customers complain >> give them more money they stop complaining.
You can manage the complaint solving a little bit better by adding a cost metric in addition to the customer happiness metric. (in my case i also added a time spent by the employee metric)
It seems to me that what you say could be reformulated, with minimal change in what's learned, as "Get thee an MBA from a good school."
The overlap between the skills necessary to run an existing business with a known business model and to found one, even where the business model is known is not high. It might be as high as 50% for those cases where the model is known, but really, that's not high.
I assume the MBA's weak relation to functioning without supervision, i.e. being an executive, is obvious.
Did I miss or misintrepret what you said?
I am learning as much as possible about effective organizations, specifically large corporations and their respective businesses.
My goals are to start a successful business and to really develop the skills needed to be a great executive.
If any of you on LessWrong have studied this area I would greatly appreciate your input.
My current approach has been to read some highly recommended books and also to read as much as I can about how modern day CEOs and founders start and run their companies. I worry that some of this information is more for entertainment than for obtaining knowledge. I am also starting a company with a friend to try and put a lot of this information into practice.
I've also been using the "execute by default" idea, which, has helped immenseley in actually making progress and I have already felt that practicing this changes the way I approach problems, mostly for the better.
Some books I'm reading:
* Management by Peter Drucker
* The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
* The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
* The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
* Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
* How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Some articles I've read:
* Marc Andreesen's articles on starting a company
* Paul Graham's essays on startups
* Most things that are highly voted on on Hacker News
I have found that a lot of the information in these books is very practical, and have really raised my understanding of how large organizations work (at least intellectually). What other approaches should I be taking?
If you have any suggestions on my plan, what I'm reading, or doing, or whatever, please let me know.