Your Best Engineers Can Also Be Great Business People

It can take some people longer than others to arrive at this conclusion, which is simply that a team’s approach matters more than the technical details themselves. If you don’t agree with that statement, that’s ok, but perhaps after reading this article you will feel differently.

Over the last 20+ years of my career, which includes Technology, Leadership, Security, and Business, I have done and still do on occasion some hands-on technical work. I have observed and over the years disagree with the idea or view that Technical leaders or heads of engineering know more or know better compared to others outside of the respective Technology or Engineering fields. Those others, mostly outside of Technology or Engineering, have brought us a slightly different mindset or angle which I think helps us leaders develop teams from good to great.

To go a little deeper, when I say good to great, what I mean is those individuals who are simply asking me, our team, or others, smarter questions, seeing what’s ahead not just what’s in front of, prioritizing, and often separate themselves more figuratively from others around them. As leaders, this is how we spot potential talent or the beginnings of a great leader. This timing can be critical, as this is when a leader needs to make themselves available to guide and support this person, so they develop and not burn out or give up and become frustrated or feel abandoned.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the concepts I mentioned above when I said asking smarter questions, evaluating not only what’s in front of you, but what’s further down the road that we should prepare for, avoid or delay until we get them.

Business focused Engineers/Technical people are thinking about the following:

• Focused, aligned, and prioritized on the work that will pay off sooner than later. With any type of work, there is a cost for doing that work, the sooner we see a return or reward the better.
• Before jumping into a new project, upgrade or migration, take the time to estimate or calculate whether the effort is worth an individual or team’s time.
• No organization, team, or individual has an infinite budget, we often need to look at work or projects in terms of opportunity costs. In other words, the same person or resources cant be used for multiple deliverables at the exact same time, to DO one task will always mean we are NOT doing another task…