"Steven develops technical professionals and technical managers who are as adept at their inter-personal communication and people skills as they are with their PCs and that their managers rave about and want to promote!"

Leadership is often defined as learning how to get people to do the things you want them to do. The real question, however, is how do we motivate people? In the new millennium, our leaders will have to motivate a more highly educated, more independent, and more diverse group of employees than ever before. Where are we to get our new technical managers?

Many successful engineers are promoted to various management positions because they have been successful in their previous technical positions, not because it is known that they will be good managers. Promotion to management is often a reward for a technical job well done. However, the traits and abilities which make a technical person successful in a technical position are most likely not going to be the traits and abilities that will make them successful as a manager. What are the traits of a successful manager and what is a technical professional to do to make the successful transition from the technical world to the management world?

The paradigms of a good technical professional and the paradigms of a good manager are completely juxtaposed. The values and beliefs about what is important for these two professions are basically at opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum. In order for technical professionals to make the transition to manager, they must modify years of college preparation for the sciences and align their attention to the human side of the business equation. While most technical professionals receive satisfaction from their own accomplishments and their contributions to the technical team, the successful manager must receive satisfaction from the successes of those he or she leads. Without this shift in values, the technical professional can only advance a short distance up the management ladder.

This paper outlines some of the shifts that must be made in order to successfully transition from technical professional to a successful manager.

The typical engineering graduate has spent 4 to 5 years studying physics, dynamics, chemistry, electronics, and engineering in an attempt to prepare for a productive career in the field of engineering. As the young engineer achieves success in the technical world, the typical reward for such performance is a promotion to manager. The tacit assumption underlying this promotion is that if the person is successful as an engineer they can certainly succeed as a manager.

In college the typical engineering student spends no time at all studying human communication principles and management techniques. The expectation is that those abilities are learned by everyone as they mature and grow and this capability need not be developed through formal education. The technical graduate has spent years in college learning how to analyze technical problems. They have dealt with concepts and theories. Attention to human communication and the issues surrounding the management of people, for the most part, has been non-existent.

Most technical professionals feel they have not completed a good day’s work if they have not produced a graph, completed an analysis, written lines of code, designed a circuit board, or done some sort of analytical process. Good managers, by contrast, may never write a line of code and may never perform an analysis during a business day. Instead, they may spend most of their day talking to people, attending program meetings, dealing with personnel conflicts, interviewing prospective employees, completing performance reviews, determining the future direction of their organizations, dealing with operations issues, coordinating technical resources, listening to insurance presentations, predicting the required size of a new building, and deciding how work flow is to be divided.

The average engineer, performing the tasks of the average manager, would end the day complaining that he or she had accomplished nothing of importance. They might conclude that, “I just spent the whole day talking to people”. Making a successful transition from technical professional to manager requires that the technical person actually change his or her “mental maps” of what is important and significant. Without this change in focus and in values and beliefs, the transition from technical person to manager is impossible.

Many different styles can be used to motivate people, including fear, intimidation, authority, incentives, empowerment, and participative management. However, the question is no longer “can we motivate people”, but how do we motivate people so that we can get their best efforts, their creativity, and their talents. The answer to this question does not lie in negative strategies. Such strategies only give the organization the robotic actions of the employees. The creativity and best efforts of each person on the team are only provided when leaders inspire and move people to belong to something bigger than themselves. Without an understanding of human behavior and the processes that lead to establishing aligned values and beliefs, managers are unable to manage and lead effectively. One of the aspects of human motivation is known as “sorting”.

As people move through the world, they determine what information to focus on and what information to throw away. This process is called “sorting”. People move through the world and “sort” the data and information they receive through their mental filters such that they keep some data and they ignore some data.

Generally, in the professional world, we can place the data sorted into five different categories: people, places, things, knowledge, and activities. That is, a person who sorts with a priority for people will not be as concerned about what they are doing (i.e., activities) but will be most concerned about those with whom they are doing it (i.e., people). Conversely, a person who sorts first for knowledge, will not be as concerned about where they are (i.e., places) or who they are with (i.e., people) as long as they are gaining knowledge. People who live in beautiful areas or locate to specific areas of the world (i.e., places) and find whatever job they can get are sorting by place. Where they live (i.e., places) is much more important than what they are doing (i.e., activities).

By this analysis, it is easy to see that, as a general statement, most technical professionals sort by knowledge and activities first. They are most concerned about what they are doing and what they are learning. People, places, and things are going to be sorted for on a lower priority.

We can likewise make a general statement about managers. That is, successful managers often sort with people and activities as the top two sorting preferences. The effective manager focuses on developing people because their success is dependent upon the accomplishments of others. Also, the successful manager is required to perform certain necessary activities, such as meetings, which may not be challenging or may not contribute to significant learning. Places, things, and knowledge may be in varying priorities below the top two: people and activities.

Obviously, these statements are generalizations, and we can always find exceptions to them. The point however, is that the average technical professional is focusing (sorting) for very different data in the world than the professional manager. In almost all cases these sorting processes take place on the subconscious level. Without raising the sorting process to a conscious level, change is very difficult. The conclusion is that the technical professional must change the sorting priorities in order to be a successful manager.

Sorting is only one aspect of human perception and cognition that is different for the technical professional and the successful manager. A variety of human “perceptual processes” separate the successful technical professional from the successful manager. Previously, the change process was left to time, experience, and often, to chance. Understanding these processes allows people to transition to management much faster and with greater success.

The transition from technical professional to successful manager is not simply a matter of dictating a change in behavior. Behavior or action is the result of a perception about the world. If we want to change behavior we must first influence perception. If we want technical professionals to behave like managers, we must first change the way they “think” about the world. We must influence their values and beliefs and refocus their attention. To require that the technical person “just change” is naive. Several aspects of human perception and cognition must change in order to achieve successful transition to management; one of those aspects is known as “sorting”. When they change their sorting priorities, technical professionals can make the transition to successful managers more easily.

It is my intention that this article provide you with some useful information and perhaps a change of perspective. What you have read is just a small part of the advice I give and the topics covered in my work coaching, training, and facilitating individuals and teams.

And if you choose to transition to leading people, it’s important to know that I have courses and coaching programs that provide clients with training in this topic. The outcome of this training and coaching is the smooth transition from technical professional to technical management.

So if you believe you are ready to take the next step up the managerial ladder, it may be just the time for us to work together.

And there is only one way to find out and that is to have a short conversation with me on the phone. In our conversation, I will ask you to tell me about your career and experience, so I can assess whether this training and coaching are appropriate for you or your company.

The initial conversation is no charge.

Just like you, my time is limited, but I would enjoy discovering if my advice can help you accomplish your goals and achieve the career you want, as have my other clients.

To find out about my availability for a no-charge, no-obligation conversation, please call my office at 415-320-2731 or send me a short email at steven@stcerri.com

Thank you. I’m looking forward to speaking with you.

Be Well,

Steven Cerri

Steven Cerri is the founder of STCerri International and the developer of the "Fully Integrated Technologist (TM)" program. Steven develops technical professionals and technical managers who are as adept at their interpersonal communications and people skills as they are with their PCs and that their managers rave about and want to promote! Steven has helped engineers and engineering managers facing termination because of poor communication and people skills, turn into some of the top performers in their organizations. He has accomplished this not only for good technologists who were at risk of termination, but also for technologists who wanted to advance up the managerial ladder, and for those who wanted to be better performers in their current positions, either technologist or technical manager.

Steven is an aeronautical engineer, a geophysicist, and a businessman. Steven is a contributing author of the IEEE book: “The Balanced Engineer, Essential Ideas for Career Development.” He is a contributing consultant and speaker on the PBS production entitled: “Taking the Lead: The Management Revolution”. He has presented papers at National IEEE Conferences and is completing a book titled: “Interpersonal Communication Tools for the Technical Professional”. He is an international trainer having trained in China, Italy, England.

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