How to get ahead in IT: Swap the geek speak for the spreadsheet

The rest of the business can learn from YOU

Where IT can help is to give the line-of-business team a vision of how they can fulfil their roles more effectively, Kleiner adds. “IT has spent years getting “closer to the business” and other teams can learn from this experience. Procurement has its own gap between employees and those power users that set policy – IT can help close that gap and get line of business teams closer together, delivering more effectively in the process.”

However technically proficient they may be, not all IT experts find self-promotion and the articulation of their own strengths particularly easy. Unless people master such skills, though, career progression could suffer, warns the managing director and co-founder of online training company Filtered.com Marc Zao-Sanders.

“Throughout their careers, IT pros focus on building up their technical competencies and getting to grips with the latest skills and ways of working - the likes of Agile and Java for example are skills employers constantly request,” Zao-Sanders said. But soft skills including communication, presentation and project management often get neglected.

“There’s much debate about where the responsibility of ensuring that staff remain skilled up lies, but ultimately, it’s the business that will suffer if staff are lacking the leadership skills needed to drive the business forward,” Zao-Sanders adds.

CIO in your sights

At a broad level, having a highly skilled workforce is crucial to ensuring the business is able to deliver growth. And at a personal level, understanding the business’s goals and strategy, and being able to help the business meet these is a crucial marker of success for personal development.

“Many employees can get caught up in the problems they encounter and bring those problems to their managers – showing you can instead bring a solution shows empathy and a business mind-set. Even if your boss doesn’t go with your solution – it will be greatly appreciated and clearly demonstrates business acumen,” Zao-Sanders says.

Bottom line: if you can achieve this, then you will stand a good chance of not just helping your organisation, but also of advancing IT within your operation and getting a better job – maybe even becoming a CIO. ®