Do You Speak Techie? - Why Leaders Love/Hate Techies

For most of my career I have been a success bridge in organizations able to speak to many different levels and groups, getting them to understand one another, and ultimately working together towards goals. What is fascinating to me is how often being a bridge starts with a manager or leader in an organization asking a question similar to this "Can you do the technical secret handshake with the various groups? We really need that." No matter where I go, the size of the company, the type, or products that they make, technology and those who work in that area are both loved by their leaders and hated at the same time.

Most leaders see technical-based professionals as valuable assets, able to shape technology into powerful services and products that an organization can use. At the same time, they hate these same assets because generally speaking they are very demanding and potentially costly. Generally speaking the problem from an organizational level can be in fact replicated with just a simple conversation between a techie and a non-techie. One person simply has no idea what the other one is saying. An exchange on a challenge such as "I need a way to track certain web page responses more accurately for better reporting purposes" can suddenly lead into a whirlwind of well-intentioned, but meaningless technical explanations. 

At such a personal level, the exchange may seem very confusing. However the parties involved follow very basic principles common to even the largest organizations. They speak about what would be delivered, what would it look like, how long would it take, how much would it cost, what happens when it is available, and how fast can changes be made. However this type of exchange assumes several critical things such as the two parties mutually respecting one another to have this exchange and trust in one another such that their discussion actually is valuable.

In many organizations both of these are fundamentally missing. I cannot tell you how often I hear phrases from professionals within an organization resembling "Our technical staff is great, but..." or "They deliver excellent solutions, however..." or "That group takes a certain type of personality to deal with them." and the list goes on. These concerns can be voiced from chief executive officers down to group managers depending on the size and type of organization. 

Yet is very true that in almost all cases, the techies deliver great solutions and often times valuable ones to an organization. However that world is as foreign to non-techies as being out in the of the Gobi desert would be to most people on the planet. 

Individuals that can bridge this gap always have the same general characteristics that tend to make them successful in their roles:

• Hands-on experience with technology. Most techies have excellent filters in place to determine whether someone they are working for really understands them or not. It is based on technology prowess. While at times techies can get along with non-techie leaders, this is not very common.
• Excellent communication. Most bridge leaders are in fact excellent communicators. They are able to speak to any person effectively and with empathy regardless of their position within an organization. 
• Consultant-like skills. Most bridges have many attributes related to consultants in terms of compromise, scheduling, scoping, flexibility, adaptability, and diplomacy so that they can work with may different groups that they have not worked with before to gets things accomplished. These skills are not typically the forte of true techies as their focus lies else where.
• Leadership. This is a nebulous quality that while well defined varies from professional to professional. Essentially the bridge has to act a lot less than their title and more like a leader being able to earn respect as appropriate, instill a sense of purpose and vision, and inspire others to reach for and realize their potential. Doing this "quickly" is a matter of perspective as each leadership style has it's own timeline.

In my role as bridge at any level in an organization, the issues with techies/non-techies is essentially communication, and mutual trust and respect. Techies love hard and challenging problems. They love delivering great things to people that can not only appreciate their work but actually use it. What frustrates techies are things very similar to non-techies. They dislike vague terms, they dislike dragging things along, they want to present things as quickly as possible as often as possible iterating along the way, they appreciate planning so long as planning does not become something unto itself, and they dislike vague or hidden deliverables. They want things as open as possible including the good, the bad and the ugly so that they can understand what they are operating against.

In the end, most organizations while improving their relationships between techies and non-techies are quickly finding themselves at odds with a more tech-saavy workforce that while not necessarily being technical in the purest sense, have an understanding of the techies enough to be effective bridges and ultimately leaders.