Strategy clinic: How do I break down 'them and us' divide?
- Posted:
- 09:56 17 Nov 2004
- Topics:
- IT Training & Qualifications | IT Workforce
My 10-strong IT team has good technical skills, but their poor personal interaction with users is creating a "them and us" divide. How can I help develop "soft" skills in the team? Can you really train someone in effective personal relations?
Observe your team's interaction with each other
You have raised two issues: the interaction between IT and users
and training staff in personal relationship skills.
I would advise you to consider how your IT personnel interact with
each other. If they integrate well as a team, it is unlikely they
lack personal skills and you can save considerable time and expense
by avoiding unnecessary personal skills training.
Communication problems between IT and users are common. They often
have little to do with interpersonal skills and more to do with a
lack of communication and goal alignment. Understanding one
another's priorities and challenges is critical to effective
interaction.
Many organisations appoint someone in a liaison role to act as an
interface between business user departments and IT. This person may
report to either IT or the business, but they would typically
identify business needs, convey them to IT and communicate progress
back to users. This provides a clear communications channel which
should help break down the "them and us" barrier.
You should also consider the alignment of business and IT
objectives and whether the targets upon which each department is
measured can support common objectives.
It may be worthwhile setting up a service level agreement between
IT and the business to clarify goals and procedures.
There are many organisations that provide personal skills training.
They provide a "safe" environment to help staff recognise problems
and techniques to address them. Secondments and joint social
activities are also worth considering.
Paul Durkin, partner, Ernst & Young
Get some expert help so you do not alienate your
team
First your team must recognise that there is a problem, and then
they must accept that it is important and necessary to
change.
This will necessitate engaging them at an emotional as well as
intellectual level. If you succeed, they will have the passion,
energy and enthusiasm to really want to do something differently.
At this point engage an expert, someone who specialises in
developing soft skills in technical people and who will not scare
them off with anything too "fluffy".
To help your team develop soft skills it is critical you set up
opportunities to review progress and give feedback in a supportive
environment.
Robina Chatham, visiting fellow at Cranfield
Test your team's view of users at a workshop
The research we have conducted supports your view that the biggest
skills gap is in soft skills, such as communication and
influence.
It is easier to train a person in a technical area than to provide
them with soft skills. However, a lot depends on the self-awareness
of the individual and this can be tested with a workshop on
measuring performance. If your team understands that customer
perception is a reality and a valid measure, you have a chance. If,
however, they hide behind CPU statistics of performance, you have a
real problem.
Many IT managers bring an IT-literate business manager into the IT
group. He or she is given a business analysis and account
management role, interacting with the most critical user groups.
The smart IT people will learn from this person and the others
should either stay in the back office or be encouraged to look for
a role that matches their technical aspirations.
Sharm Manwani, Henley Management College
Acknowledging the problem is a step in the right
direction
It is good you have recognised the problem and are not defending
the position - you are well on the way to success.
IT people often fall into the trap of seeing the IT delivery from
"their" side and not appreciating the user. They talk about
technical issues without realising users do not care and just want
the application to work - the technicalities are of no interest to
them.
Effective training is about changing the way your team members see
things, understanding how the users see them and what they want in
terms of service.
Training can use role play that puts your team in situations that
can be related to users. It can help them understand that users are
customers and how frustrating their position can be. It will also
help your team to understand their role.
For this to be successful, you need to start selling the importance
of the user as a customer to your team and make them understand
that users could get their IT from alternative sources.
Roger Rawlinson, NCC Group
Make sure the team does not see itself as separate
You can certainly help people to improve the way they manage
personal relationships, but be careful. We expect our technical
people to be technical - whether they are in IT, finance, marketing
or engineering. The "them and us" issue may be more to do with
their attitude than a lack of soft interpersonal skills.
First, make sure that your technical people genuinely see
themselves as part of the company you all work for. Make sure they
do not see everyone else as "the business" and themselves as
somehow separate.
Second, work with your executive colleagues to help your technical
staff be articulate when they need to be in ways that non-technical
people will understand.
This, rather than soft skills, is often the root of any
interpersonal problems - we do not understand what technical people
are telling us, and they do not know how to articulate what they
are trying to say.
Chris PottsDominic Barrow
Get the team to see the value of winning over
users
The first step is to get members of the team to accept that this is
important. This is probably the hardest part, as they may well
think, with some justification, that the users are not the greatest
either.
So it may be, but that is no reason not to go the extra mile if the
objectives of your business are to be met. Users grumble that IT
people either talk down to them or are incapable of using plain
English.
The example I usually quote is that I have no idea how an automatic
gearbox works, and I do not want to know, but I do need someone who
can explain to me what it does and what I have to do to use it
properly in words I can understand.
We read every day that IT is fundamental to the success of the
business. If users want anything other than a standalone PC, they
are going to have to integrate with the IT infrastructure. So
whether you provide everything in-house or whether users can ask
for packaged or outsourced IT, they have to meet your standards for
security, data integrity and interoperability.
No wonder sometimes users are resentful of the control IT has on
the operations of the business, and are quick to complain if
perfection is not apparent. This can make IT staff defensive as it
appears that the complexity and potential vulnerability of the IT
infrastructure is not understood and respected by users.
It is up to IT staff to get an understanding between them and the
users that the benefits IT brings to the business have the price
tags of design, development and risk, and the ultimate test of
resilience under normal use.
Robin LaidlawComputer Weekly 500 Club
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