#1 March 2007
From Technologist to Leader
your path... your process... your success...
STCerri International Newsletter
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the inaugural newsletter, "From Technologist to Leader". The title says it all. This is the first of my monthly newsletters that will address "Bridging the Great Divide"... that leap from technical professional to technical manager and leader. My intention is that you find useful tips and information that you can use in your career. I also look forward to your comments, questions, and suggestions.
Be well,
Steven
In This Issue
Feature Article: #1 Success Behavior for a Manager
As technical professionals we’ve been trained to be precise and to find the right answers to the problems we are given. In fact, we are powerfully “linked” to having and defending the right answer. Providing the right answer is a reflection of our personal capability. Having and defending the right answers can catapult our career as an engineer, scientist, or technologist; catapult our career as an individual contributor. However, will this behavior help us or hinder us as we move into a lead position, such as technical lead, project manager, or chief engineer? Will this behavior that helped you be successful in one area of your career help you in another. You’ll be surprised at the answer and you’ll find six steps to advance your technical career into management in the paragraphs below.
“BEING RIGHT MEANS SOMETHING ABOUT YOU”
Remember in college, our correct answers directly affected our grades. The more right answers, the better our grades. The better our grades the “smarter” we were thought to be. Through this process of connection between our right answers, our grades, and our perceived intelligence to the outside world, another connection was made. That connection was between our identity and the answers we provided. That is, a connection developed such that we began to believe that our answers to questions or problems, our solutions were a reflection of ourselves, a reflection of who we were, a reflection of our “worth”.
That equation, “our answers equal a measure of who we are and our value” is a relationship that can help us in our career advancement or it can also hinder us, depending on where we are in our career. Here is what I mean. As individual contributors, that is, as engineers, scientists, technologists, etc., our organizations expect us to provide answers. They expect us to provide “our own answers.” In fact, our annual performance reviews are based on our own individual performance. At a very personal level, the messages from our company and our boss are, “you’ve provided us with very good answers, so therefore, you are a very good engineer, scientists, technologist, etc., and for that we are going to reward you with a pay raise of X%. We’ve all been there, right?
Now this equation of “our answers equal a measure of who we are and our value” shows up in a variety of behaviors that we might display. In a meeting, we might fight to defend our idea. We might argue to support our idea when someone else’s idea may be just as good, but our idea is our own and therefore, we defend it in a more personal way. Also, we may not be very flexible in integrating the ideas of others into an overall solution.
Usually, as an engineer, scientist, or technologist, as an individual contributor, this behavior is accepted. No harm, no foul. Every other individual contributor does this, and besides, we get rewarded with pay raises for our good ideas, so no one backs off from this approach.
However, and this is where what once worked can backfire on you… when we become managers, team leads, project managers, lead engineers, etc. this kind of behavior can actually hinder your ability to move up the technology management ladder.
What I mean is that, as a technology manager, our job is to “integrate” ideas into a best idea. Our job as a technical lead is to bring ideas together to find the best idea, not to take sides and fight for our idea.
This of course is often the mistake many new technical managers or leads make. They believe that what made them successful in the past will make them successful in their new management position. In fact, a whole new behavior is required to be successful as a technical manager. One of those new behaviors is to let go of the idea that your identity and your success are tied to your ideas. The key to your success in your management position is to embrace the approach that your job is to help others bring their best ideas to the table so that you can facilitate the development of a “best” idea, made up of all the various individual ideas.
This then is the first success criterion for Moving From Technologist to Manager. It’s the ability to let go of the need to associate your success and your identity with your ideas, and to become a “facilitator” of the ideas of others.
So if you want to be a manager or lead or if you are a manager or lead, next time you are in a lead role, think about how you can ask questions to elicit the best ideas from others. How can you help the best idea show up, not from you, but from everyone else?
During my management career, I always took the approach that if everyone puts their ideas out on the table, the best idea or best ideas will become evident to everyone. And of course as the lead, your job will also be to tell everyone in your meeting or with whom you are talking, that your job is to find the best idea from everyone’s ideas. You job is to tell them that this isn’t a competition of ideas, but an integration of ideas. In this way you can help everyone else feel comfortable about the fact that they don’t have to defend their ideas. Here are some concrete steps you can take when you are conducting a meeting and you want to get the best idea out and you don’t want the participants to defend their own positions:
1. Begin the meeting by presenting an agenda
2. Next tell the meeting participants something like the following: “Welcome. As you all know, this meeting is to develop a workable approach to XYZ issue. While you each, I’m sure, have great ideas, the approach I want to take is to assume that the best idea might will be a synthesis of a few or maybe even all of the ideas put forth. So, I’m asking you to help me uncover the subtleties of all the ideas you put on the table so we can find the best workable solution to this. I want each of you to present your ideas for all of us to discuss and look at, in the hopes that when this meeting is over we’ll have a solution… a solution that might come from one idea or from pieces of many.”
3. As the meeting progresses and new ideas are presented, try not to critique them right away. Instead, ask questions about what the person with the idea “means, or “intends”, or what their thought process was. Explore the ideas. Help the group understand by your respectful questioning of the person with the idea, how you want the process of understanding to proceed. "Model" the behavior you want the rest of the group to duplicate.
4. If appropriate, as ideas are presented, notice out loud how different components of different ideas can be combined to make a better solution. This provides further evidence (i.e., modeling) for the group regarding how you want the process to proceed.
5. At the end of the meeting, recap the ideas and how, as a group, the ideas were combined and refined to achieve a better outcome. In this way you are telling your participants what you expected, how it was achieved, and how you want the next meeting to be as well.
6. If a single idea was indeed the best idea, go ahead and acknowledge it and indicate that often it doesn’t work out that way. Tell the group that most of the time an integration of ideas is necessary, but this time it wasn’t.
These six steps can help you to make that challenging transition from technologist to manager. Manager is a new role. I often call it a new career and no longer having to defend your ideas is the first critical success behavior.
Next month I’ll talk about the second critical success behavior.
Good luck. If you have any questions, you can bring them up at the free tele-seminar to be conducted on March 7th. See the link below or click here.
Free Tele-Seminar
You've been successful as a technical professional! You've found the answers to the problems put before you. It's now time to take that next step up the career ladder. Your boss has identified you to take on a leadership responsibility. Or maybe you have asked your boss to be considered for a leadership or management role. Or you've been a team lead or manager for a while. Depending on what you've accomplished so far, that next step might be team lead, project lead, chief engineer, chief scientist, or program or project manager or even director,...whatever it might be, it's something you'd like to do. You're excited and anxious to accept more and show you can handle this additional responsibility.
Now you have two questions:
"Do I currently have the skills necessary to succeed?"
... AND ...
"Will the skills I've used as a technical professional help me to be successful in my new management and leadership position or will they hinder me?"
Learn the answers to these two questions for you in the free tele-seminar on Thursday, March 22, at 10 AM (Pacific Savings Time).
Join me and your tele-seminar colleagues for this 1 hour tele-seminar that can open the door to your future and advance your career! (45 minutes of information, tools, and insights, and 15 minutes of questions and answers).
Sign up at the link below. Remember, this seminar is FREE. You have nothing to loose and maybe your whole future to gain. Also, be prepared to ask your own questions and get answers specific to your career. The tele- seminar will also be recorded so you'll have the opportunity to purchase the CD afterward if you'd like to have a copy or if you miss this scheduled event.
There are a limited number of lines and they go fast. I'll send you the tele-seminar phone number and password as soon as your register at the link below.
Sign up for your spot in this tele-seminar. Click on the link below: "Turing your Technologist Strengths into Manager Strengths"
To register for the tele-seminar, click here.
Colorado Workshops
Sign up for public workshops happening in Colorado. You can find out the details about these workshops at the link below:
Colorado Workshops
My New Blog Website
I've set up a blog website at http://www.stevencerri.com. This blog site is updated once a week, every Monday, (usually) with new ideas and tips and suggestions for you to review and apply to your career advancement. Steven's Blog
My New CDs
I have several new CDs that you'll find useful.
CD #1: "Delegation Tele-Seminar"
CD #2: "Transitioning from Technologist to Manager"
To purchase CDs click here
Coaching
Coaching is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your career advancement. There are three reasons to get coaching:
1. You know you want to be somewhere else in your career but you're not quite sure how to get there or even where you want to get to...
2. You want to effectively overcome a crisis and you want advice, guidance and coaching on how to turn that crisis around...
3. You want to acquire a specific skill you now is missing and you want it now.
Coaching can help you fast in each of these situations. To learn more about coaching, click on the link below:
Coaching with Steven
STCerri International is focused solely on helping technical professionals transition to management and leadership. The difference that makes the difference is that Steven Cerri is an engineer, a scientist, and a business. He teaches, trains, and coaches technologists from the point of view of having done it himself.
I hope you find the information in this newsletter and other products useful in your career advancement. Send questions, comments, and suggestions to: steven@stevencerri.com
Be well,
Steven Cerri
STCerri International
Copyright 2007© STCerri International and Steven Cerri. You are free to pass this information on to others and to reproduce it. I only ask that you reproduce sections in whole and you give attribution to STCerri International. Thank you.