How effective communication can boost the IT team's effectiveness [Q&A]
One of the keys to the success of an IT team is the ability to communicate both within and outside the team, something that is as important as talent or knowledge.
But for this to work buy-in from executives and business managers is essential to ensure IT managers can achieve their department goals.
We spoke to Dr. Greg Glockner, VP and technical fellow at optimization technology company Gurobi, to find out more about how effective communication can improve the effectiveness of an IT team.
BN: What are the most effective ways to explain complex technology issues to enterprise executives and business managers?
GG: Explain complex technology issues through a story. Explanation difficulties typically arise because IT people usually approach issues in abstract terms, and then go into the concrete. In contrast, most people -- including enterprise executives and business managers -- don't think in terms of the abstract; they look at specific cases, see patterns, and then move into the more abstract theories. Everyone understands what happened yesterday and what’s happening this week. If you start an explanation with a story that flows from these concrete details, it’s much easier for everyone to follow.
This is the natural way that most people learn -- they see a case, then they see another, and then they start making a theory. Only then do they start to understand the more abstract and general vision. For example, as children, we typically all learn this way -- by experimentation. We push something and then see what happens. Someone tells us not to touch something, and we do, to see what happens. The same is true for most of us during the course of our lives.
BN: What are tactics that often fail when attempting to explain these complex issues? What are the biggest, most common mistakes?
GG: IT leaders often get bogged down with details. Instead, they need to start by identifying and communicating the most important issue or goal at hand. What is it you are trying to achieve? Say you’re working on a security project. You might have lots of different data you’re dealing with, but your overall goal is not losing confidential information. While the implementation of IT is all about the critical details, when you’re discussing these kinds of complex technologies with non-tech colleagues, don’t start from the details. Start with the story -- "We had this happen, and we want to make sure it doesn't happen again" -- so everyone understands the overall goal, and then you can start providing more details from there.
BN: When discussing complex tech with non-tech colleagues, how can IT leaders avoid 'talking down' to their peers?
GG: In a business setting, always assume that the person you’re talking to is intelligent, capable and was hired for a reason. While people outside of IT might not be as knowledgeable about what you’re doing every day, they likely know a lot more about their portion of the business -- whether it be marketing or operations or HR -- than you do. They're going to be just as talented at their sector as you are in yours. Everyone has things they can learn from other people, and their unique perspectives and backgrounds. Start from that understanding.
BN: How do you position complex tech issues in an easily digestible manner, while still stressing their importance?
GG: The key is not to get lost in details. The goal of enterprise technology is to provide tools that give insight and context to our business and customers. Any manager can understand how a specific tech project will be used to benefit the business. While all tech details are important, many minute details are only important to the team who implements them. A business manager wants the application to be secure and reliable; only the technology team cares about failover servers, end-to-end encryption, offsite backups, etc. Include the crucial details to get your message across, without sharing unnecessary components to complicate your message.
BN: What is the importance of communication approaches in revolutionizing the IT department and boosting its influence in the overall company?
GG: Typically, IT is viewed as a cost of doing business, like legal or accounting. And we're always the first to be blamed when things don't work! But it doesn't have to be just that. IT delivers irreplaceable value to the company via automation and smarter decisions. When IT departments succeed, we have to get the message out -- to market our success inside the company. Many companies celebrate when the sales team closes a large deal -- IT departments must do that whenever IT delivers a big improvement. Sharing the day-to-day as well as the overarching successes of an IT department can boost its influence significantly by sharing awareness of the accomplishments IT brings. IT needs to ring the victory bell, too!
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