IT Soft Skills: The Key to Sustained Advancement
By Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Managing Director, Leadership Strategies, Inc.
I remember the final interview for what was going to become my first job coming out of college. The job was for a computer timesharing organization that developed financial and database applications for government accounts in Washington, D.C. The manager said, “Michael, I want you to understand something. To move ahead in this organization, you have to be technically competent.”
I bought it hook, line and sinker. I decided I was going to move ahead, and if that meant being technically competent, I was going to become just that. So I learned every programming language I could. At the time, that meant COBOL, Basic, Fortran and even a little about Assembler. I also learned a number of the database languages, as well as the financial-analysis, statistical, project-management and graphics applications.
And sure enough, my career advanced rapidly. At one point, I was the youngest project leader in the organization. But things suddenly started slowing down. The promotions were fewer and farther between. My reviews began saying things like, “Lacks people skills. Needs more leadership development.”
I did not understand it. They said I needed to be technically competent, and that is what I did. Yet, I was no longer getting rewarded for that. So I started looking around at the people who were advancing. They were good at things that I was not. Sure, they had the technical skills, but they were good at working in teams. They were good at consensus building, inspiring people, leading groups, working with customers—skills I lacked and wasn’t told I needed.
Sure, you have to be technically competent to gain promotions to a point. However, eventually, technical competence becomes the minimum. To continue moving ahead, an information technology professional requires another group of very different “soft skills.”
What are some of the key “soft skills”?
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Not having these skills can be detrimental to your career, as well as to your organization. Having them is a boost to both.
Let me give another example from my own career. Six years after my timesharing experience, I was an information technology consultant for one of the big five. (There were eight of them at the time!) The first project I managed was the implementation of a payroll system for 500 convenience stores. I wanted to make sure the project went well—it was my first management role—so I worked until 8:00 or 10:00 p.m. every night.
One day the client’s project sponsor came into my office and said, “Michael, you are doing a terrible job. I was just talking to the controller, and he was upset because he doesn’t understand how the new system is going to update his balance sheet accounts. Would you get on the stick?” He walked away.
We called it “seagull management.” Fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everybody and then fly out. I was more than upset. I was livid. “This ungrateful sponsor. Here I am working late every night trying to get his system in, and he’s going to bother me with something as little as this.”
I did not understand client relationship management. I thought my job was to get the payroll system in, and as far as I was concerned, I was doing a great job. However, the client saw the project in terms of satisfying his people’s needs. Of course, that entails getting the system in, but it also covers a great deal more. I was only addressing the technical requirement. I was failing to meet the real need: making sure his people were comfortable and effective with the system.
Even worse than missing the need, I blamed the sponsor when he came to warn me! I really didn’t get it. And in fact, mid-way through the project, the sponsor asked that I be reassigned. The result? I didn’t look good, and my organization didn’t look good. This situation could have been avoided had I understood the role of soft skills in technology projects.
But keep in mind, I was highly technically competent! It just wasn’t enough.
Michael Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, a facilitation and leadership training company, and chief author of the firm’s courses, The Facilitative Consultant and The Effective Facilitator. He is also a past president of the Southeast Association of Facilitators, an Atlanta-based organization which meets bi-monthly to develop skill sand promote the use of facilitation. For more information about Leadership Strategies, visit their website at www.leadstrat.com/. For information on the Southeast Association of Facilitators, visit www.seaf.com.
