Published on June 5th, 2022 📆 | 7351 Views ⚑
0Businesspeople Need To Understand Technology More Than Technologists Need To Understand Business
Many things are hybrid these days, including clouds and cars. Now, we are seeing the rise of the hybrid business leader, who has advanced technology understanding, as well as strong business-building skills. They may come from technical ranks, but also may come from the business side, with a need to develop more advanced technology skills.
Thatâs the word from Thomas Erl, author of numerous business technology books, and CEO of Arcitura Education, which provides technology skills training to thousands of professionals across the globe. âLeaders and managers need to understand technology, and how it not only relates to automating their systems, but how it relates to their global digital presence. Also, they need a firm grasp of how their competitors and others in their markets are utilizing technology.â
At the same time, technologists need to up their business acumen. There is a convergence taking place between the required skillsets of technologists and businesspeople, Erl points out. âTechnologists have to understand the business, and business leaders have to understand the technology.â
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Erl, who just co-authored A Field Guide to Digital Transformation, which provides a roadmap for both executives and technologists seeking leadership roles in their companyâs efforts.
To some degree, he explains, itâs probably more urgent for business professionals to up their technology game than it is for technology professionals to learn to lead their businesses. âSome understand the business, while some are heads-down, but they have to care more. Theyâll always be tech focused, and theyâll learn about whatever they need to about what it is they're automating. For them to understand the business is usually easier and perhaps less critical than for the executives to understand the technology. Itâs harder, and its more critical for the business side to understand technology, so they donât get caught off guard.â
Technology awareness and proficiency is now part of the job of every executive, Erl points out. âIf you donât have the insights, as a CEO, CTO or vice president, then you canât really effectively make strategic decisions anymore. In the past, theyâve relied on others to just give them reports. Now, as an established manager, you have to roll up your sleeves and bite the bullet and get into a level of understanding of technology that you may be uncomfortable with.â
This convergence is essential, as there are many organizations that simply donât yet fully recognize they are technology businesses. âSome organizations over the next few years will be in for a rude awakening if they continue along a path based on traditional approaches,â Erl warns. âItâs faster now for others to take leaps and bounds ahead of competitors than before, because you can build behind-the-scenes and roll out greater and stronger lines of business. You can just be disruptive and muscle your way into new markets. And you can really surprise other organizations with revelations with regards to what youâve been building and more so than ever before.â
At the same time, being a digitally driven business requires having and supporting the right skills, both for technologists and business leaders. âItâs really an open field right now,â says Erl. âBut digital transformation needs to be sustained. With digital transformation, you can roll things out, and you can promise the world, but you have to be able to sustain that for it to be truly successful. That comes down to how the digital transformation is carried out within the organization.â
The ability to sustain digital transformation ârequires a different culture or mindset to go along with leveraging the technology innovations that introduce new forms of automation that introduce new forms of decision-making, and new forms of utilizing data intelligence,â Erl says. âThe whole aspect of now having very comprehensive data and insightful intelligence available to us is extremely powerful, but it is something that needs to be understood in order for it to be fully leveraged. If you donât understand what it is you're being given insights for, if you donât understand how to use it, and, most importantly, if your IT teams donât understand how to properly generate data intelligence that is of relevance to your organization, that effort can take you down the wrong path altogether.â
While executives and managers donât need to learn programming with Python, they âneed more than a conceptual level of understanding,â Erl explains. âYou need to understand what your systems do in relation to your digital presence, and how they're being used by other organizations and competitors. Have they leveraged blockchain to secure data? Are they utilizing cloud computing in such a way that has made them more efficient or cost effective?â
A successful leader âneed a foundational level of understanding to really comprehend what is happening in the outside world, and to best determine what should happen in the world that they're responsible for.â
Gloss