According to an article by Andy McCue in Silicon.com [1], “Techies lack communication and leadership skills.”

First off - Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh!!! EeeeeeeeeeeOOooooooowwwwwwww!! Oooooooaoaaaooohhhhh!! SSSssssssszzzzZZZzzzzz. and Booooooooo!

Heaven knows what sort of survey this was based upon. In a time when IT departments are often stripped to the bare essentials so far that staff can barely see the wood for the trees let alone have enough time to demonstrate a visible business flair then this sort of pointy finger generalisation really gets my goat.

Not only are techies dealing with change on an almost hourly, let alone daily basis, and constantly demonstrating leadership skills through offering help, guidance, advice, and mentoring of a broad demographic range of users that to say that key business skills are lacking is a metaphorical slap in the face with a big wet fish.

Lacking communication skills? I spend all day every day breaking both good and bad news to users and softly persuading them to not only think more logically about the way they work but to buy in on projects that are aimed to improve the general business operation. These skills themselves have been honed from the front-line where techies are often faced with users who are often set in their ways and unfamiliar with the ‘work smarter not harder’ mantra. These aren’t just a narrow band of users but a broad range of employee from the general office clerk to the pan-european territory director.

The essential function of a techie is to break down large, often unfamiliar, problems down into smaller more manageable components and provide solutions for them from initial design through to final implementation whilst keeping everyone else in the loop and up to date. Forecasting, budgetting and keeping projects within both budget and timeline are an almost daily occurrence in techland - not only that but constantly ensuring that hardware, software and systems are ‘fit for purpose’ forces us to maintain the ‘helicopter view’ at all times whilst being able to switch to the ‘macroscopic view’ at the drop of a hat. This should be a boone to business in itself, as often we are detached just enough from the business action to be able to bring fresh eyes, and a clearer perspective to the problem at hand.

At other times I’ve found that techies are actively deterred and prevented from further developing their formal business skills because they are typecast in their ‘tech’ role in much the same way that Leonard Nimoy struggles to get broader movie roles due to the pointy ear references. Look above and beyond people! The number of times I’ve ranted on about ‘not being in the loop’ only to be told by those in the know ’sorry, I didn’t realise there would be an IT impact’ when everything has gone to shot and I’m called in to save the day should be enough for people to realise that us techies have far more rounded business experience than often the most experienced of users.

Next time you’re putting a project team together go shake yourself down, visit your tech team and get that stereotypical idea of “all techies know is tech” out of your head - you may be surprised that these people have smart, innovative, and logical positive contributions to offer your business.

References

[1] http://management.silicon.com/careers/0,39024671,39167650,00.htm