Geeks are different from other people. If this comes as a shocking statement to you, you’re either oblivious to others or unusually charitable with your opinion about others.” Paul Glen, Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Technology
Normal is…
I began my professional working career as a computer programmer, and although it’s been quite some time since I worked in the information technology field, I’m still a geek at heart. That’s why I’m not surprised when I hear business leaders grumble about the difficulties they encounter when managing technical folks. IT workers, according to these frustrated leaders, are not like normal people.
For starters, there’s the language barrier. With their extensive use of buzzwords and jargon, technology workers seem to mystify business communication more than any other profession does. Consider the following statement from industry veteran Brough Turner:
TCP (the dominant Internet protocol) continuously increases it’s transmit rate until it experiences packet loss, then it cuts its rate in half and enters a congestion avoidance mode.”
I think you get the point.
Notwithstanding the lingo, conversing with a geek can leave you bewildered in other ways. For example, because programmers are used to dealing with the precise rules of logic—if this, then that—many are intolerant of illogical grammar. Ask a geek the defectively phrased question, “Aren’t you able to fix my computer?” and you may receive the sardonic response, “No, I am not unable to fix your computer.” It’s hard to interpret such mocking as anything less than patronizing.
But what infuriates leaders most is that geeks tend to resist conventional or official reporting structures. That’s because IT workers respect technical knowledge far more than they do job titles. The smarter a techie is, the higher that person’s status is among his or her colleagues. If the boss happens to be the smartest geek, that’s great. Otherwise, independent-minded geeks will supplant formal leadership configurations with casual peer-to-peer hierarchies.
So, as leaders, how can we convince geeks to behave like the rest of us?
Curious question… Where does it say they have to? I know of companies that deplete training budgets in futile attempts to improve their IT workers’ communications skills. Others use disciplinary measures to counsel geeks about following the formal chain of command. Still others try to instill customer service qualities among their IT staffs, insisting that end-users (aka internal customers) deserve more respect and less condescension. Not surprisingly, these companies rarely get the results they desire.
Solution Upgrade
We need to take another approach. Our geeks’ personalities, as grating as some may be, are unrelated to their productivity. After all, whom do you call for help when your computer crashes? Those well-spoken congenial types in Marketing? I doubt it, because in the end, what matters most is finding someone capable of getting the damn thing working again.
So resist that urge to ship IT professionals off to seminars on interpersonal communication, and focus on exploiting their technical knowledge instead. For instance, maximize your training funds by sending geeks to workshops where they’ll learn the latest tricks for preventing packet loss or congestion avoidance. Simply put, help them fortify their strengths, not dwell unproductively on what others perceive as nerdy social shortcomings.
When we focus attention on their insignificant weaknesses, we overlook our knowledge workers’ strengths and inhibit their growth—and, in the process, we limit their abilities to contribute their best efforts. And where’s the logic in that?
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George Brymer is author of Vital Integrities and the creator of The Leading from the Heart Workshop®.
He can be reached at [email protected]
Image Sources: danoneverythingelse.com, 123physics.com, una.edu
