The success of your team

Your success is tied to the success of your team, not to your individual contribution.
Be well,
Dwika-ExecuTrain



Tip #1 on How to Move From Technologist to Technical Manager
**Steven Cerri

One of the first facts we have to face as a technical professional is that college didn't prepare us to be managers. When I began teaching my classes in the Technology Management Programs department at the University of California, Santa Barbara three years ago to both graduate and undergraduate students, many students asked the department's associate dean; "Why do I need a management class? I'm an engineer, a scientist. I don't need any management classes."

That tone changed after the first quarter. Engineering and science students soon realized that in my classes they were learning something they had not learned in any other classes. And the same can be said for 90% of the technologists in the world. Colleges don't teach us how to communicate and how to manage and how to lead. Engineering schools teach us how to solve problems and be lead by others. (Find out what students are saying... click here.)

So what is a technical professional to do when he or she decides it's time to become a manager?

The first step is to realize that compared to engineering and technology, management is a new career. It is something we have never prepared for. In fact, dealing with people on the level required for management is something that we actually avoided. If we wanted to deal with people we would have become therapists!

There are 10 behavioral traits that are taught to us in college that make us great engineers, scientists, and individual contributors. The ten traits are absolutely necessary for our success as technologists. However, they must be changed and expanded upon if we are to successfully advance to management.

THE FIRST TRAIT TO YOUR SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION:

1. Most technologists identify so closely with their ideas that they fight for their ideas rather than responding to the suggested improvements of others and they do not ask others for suggestions.

Throughout your college career, you were graded on what you did. If you did well on the questions on a test you received a high grade. The opposite was also true. Your success was tied to your performance and your ideas. It didn't take long for your identity to get linked to your ideas because your ideas were tied to your success. This circular thinking got programmed into you, into each of us, over the course of our college years.

And now you find yourself in a company. You start your job being praised for your ability to solve problems. You are lauded for your creativity. You are given raises and promotions based on your ability to solve problems with your own ideas.

And then you're promoted to lead, or maybe program manager, or maybe chief or lead engineer. You still think that your ideas are what count. You still think that you'll get paid and promoted because you've got the best ideas. You're going to lead your team because you have great ideas.

Frankly, this won't work if you want to be a successful manager. As a manger, the best ideas are probably coming from your team, not from you. As a manger your job is to facilitate the generation of the best ideas FROM your team. As a manager your job is to help your team be creative. Your creativity is less important than the creativity of your team. You're just one person. They are many.

You can contribute just like everyone else on your team. But you can't fight for your ideas; if you do you'll alienate your team. You can't take their ideas as your own. That will alienate your team also. Your job is to foster the ideas of your team. That's the first major shift in your career transition, understanding that your success is tied to the success of your team, not to your individual contribution. That's a Big Shift!

Next month we'll look at the second behavioral trait necessary for a successful transition to management.