3 skills technical professionals need to master
How to move up the corporate ladder and increase salary
It’s no secret technical people (like myself) like to stay in their comfort zone and focus on all things technical. It’s often daunting for us to step outside this space and face the skills needed to thrive in the corporate setting.
There’s 2 career roads all technical people can choose.
- Make a choice to stay in your swim lane and remain in the technical space for the entirety of your career. This will pigeon hole you as a tech head and ultimately limit your career progression. There can be good and bad in this and we’ll unpack this in a minute.
- Take the leap and develop your soft skills that lift you into the upper levels of management. Maybe even a CTO/CIO or CDO or even CEO for the most ambitious.
Ultimately, which road to go down is your choice.
Stay in your swim lane
Unpacking option 1. We can break this up into 2 categories:
- Those who remain in similar jobs, doing similar work and their remuneration remains similar over their career, reliant on company pay rises to keep up with inflation.
- Those who become sought after experts in their field and command big money, either as an employee or as a consultant.
There’s nothing wrong at all with option 1. These days there is far too much much focus on the need to be “successful” in life and the modern day measure of “success” is based on skewed criteria such as; how high you climb up the corporate ladder, what your bank balance is, how big your house is and in what suburb, how many followers you have on instagram or how rich and famous you are. I call nonsense on all of it. None of that is success!
Success is being content with your given life and living in the present!
If you’re someone who is content doing what you do and with the remuneration you receive, then all the kudos to you! You’ve found your happy medium between work & life and I often find myself in envy of this cohort of people.
Option 2 is a good alternative for those who can’t find contentment in the daily grind while also not wanting to go down the corporate management path. It is for the top teir technical professionals out there who can become an expert in their field.
This isn’t without risks and if it’s a road you’re determined to go down, you need to do some self reflection and be honest with yourself on a couple of things:
a) Do I have the knowledge, commitment, motivation, and aptitude to become a top tier expert in my chosen field?
b) Am, I willing to accept this is the only topic I will do for my working life?
c) What is my fallback plan and am I adaptable if my chosen field becomes obsolete in 10 years time? (this is a big consideration in the tech industry).
The Corporate Path
For those who want to go down the path of working their way up from technical into management roles, then there’s some skills you’re going to have to focus on. Skills that will feel foreign to you and take you out of your comfort zone! The earlier you come to accept and embrace this, the better your opportunities will be.
1. Learn how to speak and speak non-technical
It’s no secret that technical people are generally introverts and giving presentations and talking in large meetings, with scary high paid executives (who are often our opposites I.e extroverts) in attendance, sends your anxiety levels spiralling out of control. I understand this from many years of facing these same fears.
Learn to lower your inner views of executive grandiosity. Of course give them the respect they deserve! They have done the hard yards to get to where they are and they’re your managers. However, they’re all human like you! They all eat, breathe and sleep like you. They all have fears and anxieties like you and they were all where you are in your career once upon a time. Most don’t forget their beginnings and most want to see you succeed in your career too.
A reality of progression is you’re going to have to talk and present in meetings. The audience maybe your peers or they might be high level executives or perhaps venture capitalists you’re trying to secure funding from. You need to learn how to talk in meetings. For the introverts, that can be a hard thing, I understand this. Keep a few things in mind:
- You know your stuff, you’re good at your job and you’re presenting because someone wants to hear what you have to say.
- Approach it like you’re approaching your equals at the water cooler to chat about your weekend adventures. Don’t over formalise it in your head and make it a much bigger ordeal than it actually is.
Keep it succinct and layman’s terms
I know you love to speak about your favourite technical topic and you can chew the ear off anyone willing to listen about it!
However, In corporate circles, whilst they may hold interest in the high level idea of a topic you’re presenting on, I assure you, they hold little interest in endless detailed technical speak about it and more so, they generally have no idea what you’re talking about! Keep in mind their time is precious! This is not an ego thing, where they think their time is more precious than yours. The reality is, you are 1 of many who want a piece of their time and you need to be succinct with them.
Learn how to find the happy medium between enough detail about the technical topic to convey the message and understanding, without confusing your audience with endless technical detail and jargon.
On the flip side, corporate executives also speak their own language and you, like them with technical speak, may find their rabbiting on with big corporate words confusing and somewhat scary.
Learn the language, it’s a global language and if you can speak it, you’re halfway there. Like technical speak, this language also changes rapidly to the latest buzz words, so keep up with today’s latest and learn how to morph your technical and corporate speak into 1.
2. Learn to write and write non-technical
As with speaking, writing is the next big ticket item you need to master. Technical people are good at writing in the technical. I often say as a technical person myself, I can write code a lot better than I can string sentences together. I’ve had to force myself to learn to write.
Learn when it’s appropriate to write extensively and when to be succinct.
An email to an executive should be short, to the point but still polite. No one has time to read an essay length email and more importantly, no-one wants to!
A formal brief should be well articulated but still as short as possible and to the point. Include detailed technical documents as attachments that the reader can refer to if they wish to. Ensure you include an executive summary. Let’s be honest most executive will have only read the summary and may rely on you filling in the detail via a meeting to discuss and understand the topic.
Technical documents are where you’ll excel. Go to town with your technical detail and ensure it’s accurate.
3. Learn to Schmooze
Networking. Or more specifically schoomzing will bring your biggest gains. I understand how nerve wracking this can be for us technical minded introverts. However, it’s a reality you have to face.
Most big business deals are initiated from a networking opportunity such as a 5 minute conversation at a convention, at a lunch/dinner event or over a game of golf.
Schmoozing is an art in itself. Don’t go straight in for the kill and talk shop. Be personable and show interest in the person. Make small talk eg talk about a topic related to their business so you show interest in their business, or depending on the setting, perhaps ask about their family or talk about the weekend game (insert sport of your choice). But don’t be creepy and dig too deep into their personal space. Remember, You’ve known this person for all of 5 minutes!
If the opportunity presents, float the idea you want them to show interest in. Keep it high level (no technical talk unless they start digging deeper). Read the room! I.e watch their body language. If it is negative they either aren’t interested or you’ve picked the wrong time to talk shop with them. Everyone is different so you have to learn to read the room well.
Conclusion
For some these skills come naturally, others they may terrify you. The key is to develop them as you progress, push yourself but don’t make it such a steep curve that you curl up in a ball rocking in the corner.
With natural maturity and personal growth will come less fear of these kinds of skills. When you’re over 40 like me, These fears are long passed and they become 2nd nature.
Learn by your mistakes. You will make plenty along the way! Analyse (you’re good at that!) each interaction and pick apart where you think you went well and where you could’ve done better.
Most importantly, don’t crucify yourself for your mistakes! You will make them, you have to make them and they are normal. Everyone around you makes as many as you despite how well they may present themselves. We grow from our trials and errors, we generally don’t grow much from things we do right and well.
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