Power Skills Fuel Technology Intelligence (TQ)

Author: Pamela C. Sammarco, CEO, Green Training Associates LLC

As an Industrial/Organizational Psychology Practitioner, I’m always seeking to predict and shape human behavior in the workplace.  Our goal is to achieve the optimal state for your organization to thrive and achieve its business goals.

My consulting role typically assesses an organization’s current state and then provide talent development solutions like training, coaching and culture programs to close the performance gap or deliver a solution that will capitalize on a business opportunity.

To fuel your organization’s talent and optimize your people’s performance, let’s look at the fabric of your employee capabilities.  What do they bring ? Let’s do a skills assessment.  What do you need?  Let’s align your organization’s strategy with a capabilities plan.

How can we upskill and reskill people and provide career paths in the tech sector that’s moving at lightening speed?  The answers:  Power Skills fuel TQ to drive actionable business results within a thriving, inclusive culture.

I’m proposing we add Technology Smart or Technology Intelligence to the eight multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner is the founder of the Multiple Intelligences theory, https://www.howardgardner.com/ In Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) and its sequels, Howard Gardner proposed eight sets of abilities that manifest multiple intelligences.[4] The circular graphic and more insights can be found: Multiple Intelligences Wikipedia.

To elevate your employees’ Technology Smartness or Technology Intelligence (TQ), I encourage all technology executives to build foundational power skills, establish a growth mindset and inclusive culture. Let’s look at each of these vital elements.

Power Skills Elevate Technology Expertise to Achieve IT Performance Metrics!

What are Power Skills?

Power Skills are a curriculum of critical capabilities that develop the “POWER” skills (people skills) of your IT and all technical Professionals. Your enterprise’s digital talent will be more successful if you combine their technical expertise with people skills that are targeted to enable and enhance your ESG strategy.

We develop IT team leader and employee capabilities to innovate for opportunity, implement change, enable the business, drive efficiencies, and reduce risk.  The results?  You’ll move barriers out of the way of performance, build skills, improve collaboration, and achieve your performance metrics.

What are the most vital Power Skills that technology executives need to drive business results?

What capabilities does it take to operationalize Technology Intelligence?

We develop critical capabilities enable the people skills of your STEM Professionals:

• Professional growth and people skills are instrumental to success.
• Science & Technology = business growth. STEM professionals contribute to growth and competitiveness when they take ideas into action with team innovation.
• It’s human to be uncomfortable with change, and yet, they will learn to lead change to design, develop and implement your initiatives.
• We spark ideas to capitalize on their potential. Have their ‘finger on the pulse’ of the industry or marketplace opportunities and challenges.
• They learn to ASK questions of their executives. Seek sponsorship to shop new ideas.
• They manage complexity by thinking critically, which is imperative to work in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments to solve problems and make decisions.
• They are responsible for assessing risk probability and impact and implementing a methodology to manage risk with intelligent risk taking.
• They navigate cross-functional, matrix and ‘within’ team collaboration – both are essential to identify business opportunities or problems then design and implement solutions.
• We fill their technology, cultural and emotional & social intelligence toolbox: Become an extraordinary team member, read people, respect, and complement personality styles different from yours, practice acceptance, belonging and inclusivity behaviors and connect with others using solid communication and relationship behaviors.

The business case for improving these capabilities is clear:

• Your technical credentials, licenses and certifications are not enough to be successful in your organization.
• Companies hire people for their IQ and fire them for missing EQ, TQ and CQ.  Smart IT professionals need ‘people smarts’ too. ‘What we do’ is our job; ‘how we do our jobs’ is how we manage our work relationships with technical intelligence, cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence.
• When you invest in your IT professionals’ growth and development, your team leaders’ and members’ abilities will improve and elevate technical expertise.

Why invest in developing Power Skills?

There are five valuable outcomes:

1. Improve Employee Engagement and Retention
2. Enables Upskilling and Reskilling Plans to support Career Paths
3. Cultivate Continuous Learning Mindset & Cultural Intelligence.
4. Build Habits through Active Training
5. Build Relationship Networks

The Role of Organizational Culture in Sustainable Technology

Organizational culture is a critical topic today to attract, retain, develop, and engage your IT leaders and employees. The classic quote by Peter Drucker “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Is true today, more now than ever. Here are the top three culture priorities to help you optimize a thriving organization.

1. Build an inclusive, diverse, just, equitable culture that offers psychological safety, belonging and acceptance with our DEI Leadership Training Suite

• Outcome: Improve workplace collaboration, inclusivity, acceptance, and solid relationships

2. Build a business where all employees develop a growth mindset essential for your success with our Growth Mindset Training Suite.

• Outcome: Develop skills to drive innovation, lead change, take intelligent risks and increase business results.

3. Engage employees with a purpose-driven vision of green, sustainability and ESG business models and train your employees to execute it with our Sustainable Future Training Suite.

• Outcome: Educate and engage employees to promote well-being, make green decisions every day, with fundamentals of climate adaptation, earth day and water conservation.

Conclusion

Technology executives will find value in developing TQ with power skills, growth mindset and a thriving, inclusive culture aligned with the five technology leadership drivers to fuel sustainable technology and drive measurable business results.

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