Discussion on:

IT pros: Avoid becoming a human OS/2

Has your experience in the IT field shown you the need for communications skills as well as tech skills? Do you work with anyone who's technically brilliant but completely lacks people skills?

I've seen many technically savvy employees with good work ethic and vision, who lacked the most fundamental skill of listening, which is a big part of effective communication.

Instead, of being interested in what is being said, they are thinking of their next sentence, and therefore their knowledge and ideas become the center of the universe.

Like it or not, IT is a very customer service oriented field.. Whether it is the "end-user", the CFO or CIO, the ability to think on your feet - in response to what is being asked or said is vital to survival in this field... in my humble opinion -:)

I was at a job where I had a great relationship with my boss, had the technical skills, great relationships with most the staff, et al. As soon as a merger was announced with a sister company, the tech at the sister started a quiet campaign to win over my company's president. Sure I *thot* I had a decent relationship with the prez, but sister tech went into overtime on it. When decision time came, the prez told my boss which one he wanted to keep and it sure wasn't me. Learned my lesson on that one big time!!!

Almost every consultation firm I've ever worked in had at least on "guru" who was viewed as the local/ in-house genius. There was little (if anything) that this guru could not handle. Problem was that guru's usually handled things alone.

The gentlemen I refer to were not bad people by any measure, but they definitely lacked communication skills. To complicate things, they were also poor at documenting their work.

Bottom line was that fellow techs could come to them for advice & etc, but these skilled technicians/ engineers were rarely sent out into the field alone as they (sadly) needed to be monitored. They also generally could not communicate w/ users (or non-techs in general) about how a problem was to be resolved.

To this day, most of these gentlemen (who are easily more knowledgeable than most) are "stuck" as a senior administrator/ technician/ engineer somewhere. They will likely continue to be passed over for promotions to a managerial position, even if it simply means management of a project.

It is true that actions speak louder than words. However, your mouth does need to do some of the talking some of the time. In order to move up the food chain, the higher ups need to be able to relate to the person who they will entrust w/ their technology. If they can not understand you, or perceive that you are anti-social, hostile - or worse, incompetent - due to your verbal skills, your job and maybe even career is at risk.

This should not be a surprise to anybody, particularly not to those with extensive experience in customer support.

The biggest barrier to good communication that I've seen is the arrogance mentioned in the article. Too many techs forget that one element of communication is treating the customer/client the same way you expect to be treated. No matter how good your actual job performance, no matter that you can translate "geek" into perfect English. If you talk down to the customer, you won't be communicating and your customers won't be satisfied with your work.

I knew I was doing something right when I came back off my first vacation after starting my current job and my stores told me "Don't send that guy that replaced you back out here again, he treated us like we were stupid!"

As an independent PC technician it is very important one treats customers as an equal (as far as possible of course). We work in several cities under a franchise (every technician works independently) and lately I 've been getting more and more calls from customers asking for anyone else than one particular "colleague technician". His method of working , i.e. no explanation of what he does to repair, selling them antivirus software but doesn't remove the old one, etc etc. is generally not taken with great gratitude. This makes him very unpopular. Good for me, bad for him, but also bad for the franchise.

I've always strived to be that way. Life is so much easier when you follow the Golden Rule and "translate" from Geek to User.

I know of a few IT people that have no people skills. Put them in a room with servers and everyone's happy. Have them talk to users and no one's happy.

The only downside to being able to work well with users is I've gained 20 pounds from all of the food the mysteriously appears on my desk, usually candy, after I've solved a user's "big problem". I think I can handle that issue. : - )

At the company where i work, pretty much every member of the IT team lacks this essential skill. They have a low opinion of anyone who is non computer literate, and when they talk to others (including myself) they are very condescending, then they complain when staff call or email me directly rather then go through helpdesk

I took customer service training when i worked for Xerox waaaay back in time, it was the best investment they ever made in me, because a customer-centred attitude has served me really well throughout the years. I often get praised as someone who is patient, helpful and knowledgeable, I NEVER get talked back to or have someone's frustration thrown in my face and it's sad that more IT folk aren't given this important training.

I received my CST in a previous position. Right out of school I worked for Verizon DSL as a tier 2 help desk support tech. That is one job that will teach you how to interact with customers, and trust me if you screw up they DO let you know.

I also received CST in my first "Real World Job" with IBM. Most of the technicians I meet today just don't understand that the job is to fix the customer first and the actual problem second. I can't count the times I was able to leave a customer feeling good about the fact I had to order parts or a patch tape and return the next day. Just my two cents worth. CST is never a waste time or money and is worth both if you are new to the tech support industry.