Maximizing Your IT Career Needed Skills and Next Steps

Maximizing Your IT Career

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Introduction IT, as an aspect of business, is rapidly evolving. It’s moving from being seen as a behind-the-scenes cost center to a business-critical aspect of every successful enterprise. And as IT becomes more tightly integrated into the business, the seasoned IT professional is expected to be able to understand the business, communicate with businesspeople, negotiate, and even lead. The increasing expectations of IT leaders is well enough understood that some university IT programs are including communications, group dynamics, collaborative and interpersonal communications, and leadership classes in their curricula. This, of course, does not help current IT practitioners like you. In April 2014, Wisegate surveyed hundreds of seasoned IT professionals (90% of whom have been in IT for more than ten years) across a balanced mix of roles, as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1. "Which of the below most closely matches your current role in IT?"

Source: Wisegate, April 2014 An analysis of this data leads to several meaningful insights about skills current IT practitioners should be working toward, as well as what steps you need to take in order to maintain relevance within your field.

Get Balanced with Business Experience As noted in the introduction to this report (and shown in Figure 2), 90% of the respondents to this survey have been in IT for more than ten years, making this a very senior group.

Figure 2. “How many years have you worked in IT?” vs. “How many years of business-related experience do you have?”

Source: Wisegate, April 2014


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However, as the second chart in Figure 2 shows, this very senior (50% of those surveyed have been in IT for more than twenty years) group of IT professionals is likely to have relatively little business experience: 28% have less than five years-worth; another 23% have 6 – 10 years of business-related experience. This is, of course, understandable; if you have been in IT for ten or more years, you likely weren’t expected to have business experience for a large portion of your career. This is changing now, as Figure 3 shows. An overwhelming 87% of those surveyed see business knowledge is now more important for them to move forward in their career.

Figure 3. “If you had to choose, which would you say is more important, business knowledge, or technical know-how for you to move forward in your career?”

Source: Wisegate, April 2014 It’s one thing to recognize the need for business knowledge and recognize the gap between current technical and business experience among IT professionals; it’s another to do something about it—to start bolstering one’s business acumen and experience. The rest of this report calls out types of business skills you should be actively pursuing, along with guidance on where and how to get help.

Get Help…Now When asked to “choose the three skills and attributes you think would be most worthwhile for you to focus on to move your career forward,” IT professionals in the Wisegate survey most often chose “Being business savvy,” “Influencing others,” and “Building relationships” (see Figure 4).


Figure 4. Wisegate Survey Question: "Choose the three skills and attributes you think would be most worthwhile for you to focus on to move your career forward."

Source: Wisegate, April 2014 The top three responses to the question shown in Figure 4—all close to or even above 50% of the respondents—are telling. Clearly, those taking the survey understood they need to develop expertise that will help them add value to the business, but they tended to select general options like “being business savvy” (chosen by 57%) or “building relationships” (chosen by 49%) over specific skills such as “negotiating” (19%), “verbal communication” (18%), or writing (a very meager 4%). This is in stark contrast to how respondents replied when asked what kind of skills their staff needed to develop, for which negotiating and communication (both written and verbal) easily topped the list. The disconnect here is interesting: respondents strongly note a need for specific business-related skills to be developed by their staff, while they think in relatively vague, general terms of business skill development for themselves. It’s very likely that in order to accurately assess and address your own skills gaps, you’ll need to ask for help from a trusted, objective source: someone to help you develop your career.


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But who?

Who Depends on Where When asked the survey question, “Who is currently helping you develop your career?” “manager” was the most frequently chosen option (38%), while “mentor” was second (31%), and “nobody” unfortunately came in third (29%). This, however, tells only part of the story. Who is available to help you develop your career likely depends on the structure of your company, as is demonstrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Wisegate Survey Question: "Who is currently helping you develop your career?" broken down by how hierarchical the respondent's company is.

Source: Wisegate, April 2014 Here, you can see that in flat organizations, a mentor, an executive coach, or a peer from outside your company—all three likely to be from outside one’s company—are the most


likely options for getting help in developing your career. This makes sense; flat organizations are less likely to have processes and personnel in place with the objective of progressing employees “up” a ladder. On the flip side of that coin, Figure 5 shows that IT professionals in hierarchical companies are more likely to have their manager helping them develop their career—but less likely to have anyone else helping. A probable reason behind this is the sense that your manager is sufficient help in developing your career. This might in fact be the case if you are satisfied with your current career trajectory. If, however, you expect to excel in business—not just IT—skills, you’ll very likely need to look outside your traditional organizational structure. To further validate this point, you need look no further than at this same question, through the perspective of C-level and director-level IT professionals, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Wisegate Survey Question: "Who is currently helping you develop your career?" broken down by role.

Source: Wisegate, April 2014


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C-level / VP-level and directors are more likely than those at manager or individual contributor level to have a mentor helping them develop their careers. Likewise, C-level respondents are the least likely to rely on a manager for career development. These are good examples to follow; in order to integrate well into the business, it makes sense to get the same kind of help others who successfully work with the business have gotten.

Focus on Specific Skills If you were to ask a successful businessperson how you should develop the skill of being “business savvy,” you would likely be met by a blank look. And yet, as shown in Figure 4, being “business savvy” was chosen more often than any other option as a top-three needed skill / attribute for you to focus on to move your career forward. The point is, while being business savvy is an admirable aspiration, it will be by developing specific business-relevant skills that you will become valuable not just within the IT organization, but throughout the company. Note, for example, some of the lower-rated skills in Figure 4: negotiating, verbal communication, presenting, and writing. And yet, these are all skills that are critical components of being business savvy. A reason these skills are seen as less important to strive for is the “if I have to” mindset. Most senior IT professionals can write an email, make a presentation, and conduct negotiations…when and if they have to. This is, of course, much different than actually being skilled at these critical business tasks. Meanwhile, people in the business side of an organization often have a difficult time following those presentations, or understanding the question or point being made in an email due to the technical focus and detail, at the expense of the business message being presented. Don’t think that just because, in a pinch, you can get one of these “soft skill” tasks done, that you actually are doing it at the level businesspeople expect from one another. In order to understand which skills you need to really focus on, take the time to find a mentor, a career coach, or a successful peer to help you honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses. Identify specifically what kind of business tasks you’re good at, what you’re competent at, and where you need work. Then prioritize your weaknesses and put together a plan to begin working on specific objectives in these areas.


Make Career Choices That Help You Learn A look at Figure 7 from the Wisegate survey shows that more than 60% of IT professionals rank “more opportunities to learn” as one of the top-three most-important things they would value in positively affecting their job and life.

Figure 7. Wisegate Survey Question: "Rank these items in order of importance they would have in positively affecting your job and life."

Source: Wisegate, April 2014 “More positive feedback from the business side of the organization” was chosen second-most often, and “more challenging work opportunities” was the third-most frequent result. Very interestingly, “more money” was ranked toward the bottom. And yet, when making a career move, compensation is frequently one of the points most-frequently negotiated, while learning opportunities are either touched upon briefly, or not discussed at all. The market for highly-experienced IT professionals is—and will almost certainly remain for the foreseeable future—a seller’s market. It can almost be seen as a given that you are going to be fine, in terms of compensation. With this in mind, it makes excellent sense to focus on negotiating—whether when discussing benefits within your current job or when pursuing another—on learning opportunities and business integration.


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Specifically, ask for help with the following:

• Finding a mentor within the company: Someone who has a history within the IT organization, but is currently working in the business side. Be certain to also ask for time both on your schedule and your mentor’s for you to work together.

• Locating and subsidizing the cost of a career / executive coach: In order for you to get a sense of what you need to learn to be valuable to the company in an expanded, more comprehensive role, you need to develop beyond traditional IT-specific tasks and begin working on business-relevant skills. To do this, you will benefit from the help of someone whose business is assessing and instructing those who, like yourself, have high competence in one area and want to now do more.

• Opportunity to develop business-relevant skills: Most IT professionals agree that the best way to learn is by doing. Ask for changes to your role—or to the scope of your role—that will put you in the position of interacting with the business: presenting, communicating, building relationships, negotiating, and participating in strategy.

The great thing about making these kind of asks in negotiating is that each of them has a strong benefit to the business itself. As you develop your business skillset, the enterprise derives direct, meaningful benefits as well. First, you become an incredibly useful person in the business: an IT professional with business savvy. Perhaps even more importantly, you challenge yourself—and like most IT professionals, you likely find that you’re most fulfilled when challenged in meaningful ways.

The Bottom Line A strong and persistent need for senior IT professionals, combined with increasing relevance of IT to every business, puts you in the driver’s seat for your career. Most IT practitioners recognize this and an overwhelming percentage agree that business knowledge is the most important thing they need to move forward in their careers. However, while most IT professionals understand they need to be more business savvy, they falter somewhat in understanding what skills they need to acquire in order to be more relevant to the business. Getting help in this regard—by working with a mentor, a career coach, or even with your manager—to assess and develop specific “soft skills” like communicating, presenting, negotiating, and so forth—is a critical step in making the transition from being a useful employee in IT to being an essential person to the business.

There is a growing body of evidence that the emerging successful leader is the self- aware leader1. The self-aware leader is strong in empathy and compassion as well as integrity.

One key trait of self-awareness is the ability to own your whole self—strengths and weaknesses included. In this research we noticed that when asked about themselves, practitioners’ answers were general (e.g., I need to be business savvy.) Yet when asked about others, such as their direct staff, the answers� were� more� specific� (e.g.� they� need� communication and presentation skills). In addition, offering yourself empathy and compassion will make it much more likely that you have those to offer others, including those on your team at work.

In order to make the most of this research in helping you with your career, we recom-mend a few things:

#1 Be specific on your own behalf As you consider the recommendations below, pay careful attention to the specific� elements� of� your� own� develop-ment that you need to focus on: the more� specific,� the� higher� the� likelihood� of success. Consider, for example, that

you say to yourself, “I am going to get in shape.” That is pretty vague and at the end of the upcoming month, how will you know how you did? How will you know on a daily basis what to make time for? Instead, if you said, “I want to increase my cardiovascular endur-ance,” then you could come up with a plan to work toward that goal. It’s the same with your career development: be as� specific� as� you� can� about� the� areas� of yourself that need to be developed; only then can you focus and actually develop.

#2 Own your strengths From an evolutionary perspective, our brains developed to respond to nega-tive stimuli quickly, and positive stimuli slowly. This trait persists in us. Take a careful inventory of the skills and aptitudes at which you shine, as those are the building blocks of a satisfying career. Think of aptitudes as things you learn easily and do well. Invest in these areas� to� see� your� career� and� fulfillment� blossom.

#3 Be curious about yourselfInvest in learning more about your natural areas of strength and interest. What are the things that naturally make you enthusiastic or drive up your energy? Those are great clues that you are onto something that is important for you. Get your aptitudes tested (www.jocrf.org) as this will give you a great foundation for understanding your innate abilities. Wisegate regularly recommends the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation for this.

1http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201306/can-one-man-save-american-business

Succes! "p!


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About the Authors Nikk Gilbert is vice president of Information Technology and CISO for CUNA Mutual Group. You can reach him at [email protected] or @archangelnikk on Twitter. Paul Harjung is the CISO at W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. and can be reached at [email protected]. Elden Nelson is Editor-in-Chief of Wisegate, with responsibilities to provide consistent, high-quality content its Members can use. You can reach Elden at [email protected].


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Maximizing Your IT Career Needed Skills and Next Steps

Technology

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