Why Being Right Is Key to Working with IT
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An IT manager at Purdue University details what he thinks matters to IT workers on the job, and what business managers gain to learn from this information. Having respect and being right outweigh almost everything else in ranks of the technology worker.
The disconnect between technology workers and business-centric workers is a theme you see regularly, and it couldn't be more important in challenging economic times. How you work with management, and how they understand how you think is of particular interest when the difference between your productivity and your peers' is being closely evaluated on a weekly basis. It could be the difference between you keeping your job and losing it.So if you are looking for an article that helps cut through the misconceptions and exaggerations of technology workers, be sure to read "The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks" by Purdue University's Jeff Ello, who is a "hybrid veteran of the IT and CG industries, currently managing IT for the Krannert School of Management." Ello takes a stab at explaining-in great detail-what drives technology workers to perform well and what gets under their skin. In better understanding these issues, management and techies may be able to find better common ground to make projects more successful and less formidable.
Ello talks about the value of respect on the job, and calls it a "currency" that is not to be squandered:
"Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors,
period. Foundational (bottom-up) respect is not only the largest single
determining factor in the success of an IT team, but the most ignored. I
believe you can predict success or failure of an IT group simply by assessing
the amount of mutual respect within it."
Ello's assessment is backed by Paul Glen, a principal at C2 Consulting, who is
author of the book Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead
People Who Deliver Technology. In an interview with ZDNet Australia, Glen said:
"Their
judgment is swift and merciless. When geeks perceive that someone in their work
environment is ineffective due to incompetence or aberrant behaviour, they have
a tendency to dismiss that person completely. They also take great pride in
their work and take criticism personally. If a manager says a particular
interface makes no sense, he has to understand that's like telling a geek his
child is ugly. They put extraordinary effort into the creative solution of a
technical or business problem, and they take it personally if that solution is
criticised."
Glen goes further by outlining the challenge of managing people who know more
about what they are doing than managers who own the project. It's not a power
play, Glen says, but a more flattened hierarchy at play.
"Give
up on power. Power is central to most ideas about management, but when dealing
with geeks, it will lead you astray. Most managers' notions of their own power
get rather wrapped up in their own self-image and become hard to relinquish.
Unfortunately, since power is useless when dealing with geeks, managers must
dismiss the idea that power comes from being a manager. It's not that there is
no power in the geek manager role, but it comes from being in the center of all
the activity-from being the hub rather than from being on top of everything,
being the dictator."
Understanding the importance of respect-of business managers treating it a bit
more seriously and of tech workers understanding the weight they put on it-could
help ease some of the misunderstandings and project-related failures in
technology projects. 
