Reddit reviews Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed., The

Kudos to you for wanting to expand your horizons, and specifically looking at areas that companies and business owners often care about. It's good to read up on them, but to be honest they probably won't sink in unless you're dealing with those topics on a weekly or monthly basis. That said, if you need a resource, check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Day-MBA-4th-Step---Step/dp/0062199579

Instead of trying to read it cover to cover, go have coffee with your boss or someone in finance. Try to see what the higher uppers care about this year. They may say profit, but is it revenue or cost? Or maybe it's market share? If your company is publicly traded, take a look at the income statements and then look up stuff you don't understand in the book or online. Pay attention to free cash flow, if a company is on the decline, the free cash flow can indicate how dire the situation is.

Ultimately what's most beneficial is to develop a good financial intuition: knowing what the company cares about, and knowing the implications to your department or your job.

As far as trying to figure out what different parts of an MBA program do, you might be interested in The Ten Day MBA, by Steven Silbiger. It breaks down the skills that you learn in classes on, say, marketing each day and provides a pretty good overview of how those skills are applied. If you're looking for help making a decision on your concentration, this might be helpful for you.

The 10-Day MBA

One book to rule them all.

I'd start with either the Complete MBA For Dummies or The Complete Idiot's Guide to MBA Basics, 3rd Edition then advance to The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business or The Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed..

>Do an MBA and switch

I got you fam https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062199579/

If you're looking for books written for the general public, I usually tell my friends who are considering graduate business school to read The Ten Day MBA to get an extremely general overview of the basic topics covered in an MBA program. It has flaws (the accounting and finance sections are particularly weak), but it's not bad from a 30,000 foot perspective.

Depending on your interests, others I'd recommend are: Getting to Yes, an outstanding book about negotiation; Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, a classic on marketing / organizational strategy; and Good Boss, Bad Boss for general management / HR. As another commenter mentioned, The Goal is also pretty good, but be aware that it's considered somewhat outdated by modern operations profs (especially the last 1/3rd).

Definitely ambitious, I’m sure there’s a market and winning formula in there somewhere. Like I say, much more of a business challenge than an engineering one though.

Subsequently, if you want to advance your idea then gaining business knowledge will be your best friend moving forward. I’ve read the below book and found it to be insightful into the world of business, maybe it can be of some use to yourself. At least it will give you a starting point so you know where you will need to go.

https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Day-MBA-4th-Step-Step/dp/0062199579