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Technology
By Staff Report
Jul. 19, 2017
Every industry swears it is unique, that its business environment requires a distinct set of leadership skills and practices. But no sector can make the case for uniqueness better than technology. Its combination of high-velocity competition, complexity, global talent and interdependence among rivals is unmatched. Dense geographic concentrations foster even more cultural idiosyncrasies.
While exotic anecdotes about tech culture make for fun social commentary (“My husband and I work at competitors. I hide my travel plans from him so I don’t disclose trade secrets”), are the differences between the cultures of tech and non-tech companies simply a matter of degree or of kind? Do the differences change the physics of management? Are there unique competencies required of managers to thrive in tech companies?
We interviewed senior and midlevel managers across large and medium-sized tech companies both inside and out of Silicon Valley. All subjects were drawn from the database of my company, VitalSmarts, and included individual contributors, managers and HR professionals. We asked them what advice they’d give to a niece or nephew who was transitioning from a manager role in another industry to a manager role in tech.
The answers were fascinating. One leader described the unique dilemma he faces when he has a brilliant engineer who he doesn’t want on his team but who he is terrified to lose to a competitor that is racing to market alongside his organization. Another leader described how disconcerting it is to work in an environment where being a vice president means nothing when pitted against a mercurial game designer with his own agenda.
Each leader identified the challenges they felt were most important and unique to tech. As the interviews progressed, we developed categories that captured similar challenges. By the end, we uncovered seven challenges that emerged as trends.
Next, we tested these challenges by surveying 827 tech employees and 2,800 non-tech employees. The questions measured the frequency, severity and solvability of each challenge. Below are the descriptions of the seven challenges and the survey results.
Results: Tech subjects confirmed this pattern is important and is also uniquely challenging within tech.
Results: Tech subjects confirmed this pattern is important and is also uniquely challenging within tech.
Results: Tech subjects confirmed this pattern is important and is also uniquely challenging within tech.
Results: Tech subjects confirmed this pattern is important but does not differentiate tech from non-tech.
Results: Tech subjects confirmed this pattern is important and is also uniquely challenging within tech.
Results: Tech subjects confirmed this pattern is important but does not differentiate tech from non-tech.
Results: Tech subjects rejected this pattern with a below-average score. In fact, they were significantly less likely than non-tech subjects to rate this pattern as especially challenging. These results jump off the page! In contrast, leaders described cultural blindness as an important and unique challenge to tech suggesting that our survey subjects were blind to their own cultural blindness.
Impact on Performance
Overall, six of the seven challenges are common within tech, and five differentiate tech from non-tech companies. So why should a tech manager care? Our next step was to understand whether skill in navigating these challenges predicts performance — something leaders care about. Using a performance scale and regression analysis, we found that four of our 30 survey questions — encompassing four different challenge areas — did an extraordinary job of predicting performance. These survey questions, in order of importance, are:
Our research indicated that tech managers who mastered the challenges represented by these four challenges significantly boosted the performance of their team.
Solutions: Discuss What Can’t Be Discussed
As we shared this list of cultural idiosyncrasies with tech leaders, few were surprised. But what surprised us was that few had ever been trained or coached on how to deal with them. Our interviews suggested two reasons these challenges go unaddressed:
The best tech leaders approach these human challenges the same way they would approach a technical challenge. They discuss the challenges, set improvement goals and apply scientific principles to solve them.
Here are management strategies tech leaders can use to address four key challenges:
The most fundamental finding of our study is that while most tech leaders know they’re living in a rarefied world, few have mapped its actual features or mastered its navigation. The best tech leaders understand that today’s success is about product, but tomorrow’s is about culture.
The unique nature of the tech world doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon. What can change and change quickly is a manager’s ability to manage the idiosyncratic challenges that come with the territory. These recommendations will equip managers to excel in a world that outpaces even the best and brightest.
David Maxfield is a New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker and vice president of research at VitalSmarts. For the past 30 years, Maxfield has conducted social science research to help Fortune 500 leaders and organizations achieve new levels of performance.
ABOUT THE STUDY
The study collected data from 827 tech employees and 2,800 non-tech employees during 2015. Tech employees were defined as employees of companies that create technology as a product or service and include organizations like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, Oracle, Uber, etc. All subjects were drawn from the VitalSmarts database and included individual contributors, managers and HR professionals.
The study included formal interviews with senior and midlevel managers across large and medium-sized tech companies, as well as senior HR managers from these same companies. Each leader identified the challenges he or she felt were most important and unique to Tech companies. Researchers identified seven challenges that emerged as trends across the body of interviews. They then tested these seven challenges with a 30-question survey that measured the frequency, severity and solvability of each challenge.
To download the full report go to www.vitalsmarts.com/tech.
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