Over the years, because of our roots in technology recruiting, The Ayers Group has been called on to do a great deal of coaching in IT. Twenty years ago, IT was a relatively isolated function staffed by people hired for their technological competencies. Today, IT occupies an important seat at the table. Almost all businesses and industries have become technologically dependent. Infrastructure rules. If it’s down, you’re down.
Virtually every organization has technology staff, and as their jobs have expanded, a high percentage of these employees have run into issues relating to interpersonal skills. That’s certainly not surprising since most were originally hired for their specialized skills and expertise. Our IT coachees tend to belong to one of three categories.
Category One—Members of this group expect to be respected simply because of their expertise. They’re hard to deal with because they rely on the power of their position—their value to the organization—to get things done rather than using positive influence skills. They have the interpersonal skills and know how to use them when it’s absolutely necessary. But they don’t see the value in being a team player because they’ve been able to get things done faster their way.
To me, this is not a coaching issue but a motivational problem. It gets delegated to external coaches because no one in management wants to deal with it. The organization is afraid of losing people whose skills are highly marketable in bad times as well as good so they reward bad behavior. I’ve seen companies give seven-figure bonuses to individuals in this
category and then hire a coach to fix the
interpersonal problems.
Category Two—Some technology people simply do not recognize the need for interpersonal skills. They value only competency. These are people who couldn’t be team players if their lives depended on it—or so their employers think! It may be that they had bad role models over the years, interacted only with other technical people, or delivered answers and solutions so quickly that non-IT people were willing to tolerate the rough edges. Now they’ve taken on a more outward-focused position—technology people may not see it this way but they are, generally, in service roles—and some of them lack the skills to be effective with employees, peers, bosses and other constituencies.
Direct reports may tolerate being treated according to the value system of a manager in this category because they value the work they’re doing. So the manager thinks things are fine, reinforcing his or her view that people skills are unimportant. When we do interviews with reports and peers, we generally find out that things are far from fine. 360° structured interviews can be an especially important part of the coaching process with individuals who don’t value the skill set toward which you’re coaching. These interviews yield feedback, particular incidents, and other data that are hard for the coachee to ignore.
Category Three—These tend to be people who were attracted to the field by a love of technology and weren’t necessarily looking for growth, power, or position. Over time, however, their competencies grew them and situations moved them along. Now they find themselves in CIO, CTO, or other senior positions for which they were never groomed or
prepared.
In their new roles, they’re managing up more and across to different constituencies on the business rather than technology side. They’ve entered a new peer group which includes former internal clients. Their new peers have different expectations with regard to demeanor and interpersonal behavior than their peers in technology did. To be effective, the people who find themselves in this situation need a set of skills and competencies that go beyond their technical abilities.
What are the takeaways from all this?
- It’s important to recognize that interpersonal skills can be developed if the individual recognizes the need and is properly motivated to change.
- The organization needs to demonstrate that interpersonal skills are valued and as important to the job as technical skills. Performance expectations must be established, along with a system of rewards for improvement and consequences for negative behavior.
- Talent management has to be a continuous process. It’s not a good idea to promote first and fix problems with interpersonal skills later. You’re simply rewarding and reinforcing undesirable behavior and sending a bad signal in the organization.
For more information about coaching and other OEC needs,
contact Joan Caruso, Managing Director, Organizational Effectiveness Consulting, at joan.caruso@ayers.com or 212.889.7788. The Ayers Group is preparing a white paper
on coaching in IT, which will be made available on request.
