For organizations offering complex services and solutions, no one has more impact on getting and keeping customers than the technical expert.(1)

One senior services executive talked about it in terms of competitive advantage: “Our lifeblood depends on the technical capabilities of our top personnel to differentiate our company from others in the industry. They understand our customers’ issues and are creative in developing solutions to address them. They have become evangelists for our products and solutions and are often used in pre-sales situations to demonstrate our capabilities.”

Yet although their specialized knowledge is highly prized, their potential value both to their customers and to their organization is often unrealized.  My latest study shows that top services leaders understand this huge potential and are changing (sometimes dramatically) their expectations of their technical talent in an effort to take advantage of this opportunity. However, if not approached appropriately, there is a significant downside.

Here are the findings from 80 services executives to this research question:

What (if anything) has changed your expectations of your technical experts in the last two years?

To begin with, let’s start with understanding what percentage of participants have not changed their expectations of technical experts. Overall, 9% of participants stated that their expectations are about the same as two years prior.

Of course, the flip side is that over 90% of respondents said that their expectations of their technical experts have changed. It is interesting to note that only 4% of this subset (those saying that their expectations have changed) stated that they are offsetting some responsibilities to balance added expectations (more on this later).

Figure 1 shows what the managers of professional services technical experts expect from their technical experts. The number-one expectation, totaling 20%, was becoming more business savvy - getting technical experts to understand the larger framework as to how technology was to be employed to impact business issues and organizational performance. Business savvy encompasses everything from knowing more about how executives think to what drives the marketplace of their clients to simply having a broader understanding of business in general. Comments included: "I expect the team to have a deep understanding of current technologies, our industry, and business processes," "seeing more and more technical experts who have solid business backgrounds - this was a rarity in earlier years," and "used to be generalists, but now must have a deeper understanding of business knowledge - expect them to be more business savvy."

The percentage of respondents who wanted their technical people to make more of an internal contribution totaled 18%. There are various ways to help the practice and the professional services organization succeed. These range from contributing to the knowledge management system to coaching new consultants to developing IP. Representative statements reflecting this included: "Each subject-matter expert must be able to develop articles, methodologies, and other unique intellectual property that will differentiate the firm and themselves," "more time on documenting and spreading their knowledge," and "mentoring and skill development of junior associates."

In a tie for third, 15% of participants wanted more driving of revenue, and 15% expected more of their technical experts to assume a trusted advisor role with their clients. Drive revenue responses included: "more emphasis on pre-sales," "solution architects are to strongly coach and drive activities with the traditional sales reps in order to move opportunities down the pipeline," and "the account manager has overall responsibility, but the system consultant does his own selling."

Representative trusted advisor comments were: "the need to transition our engineers from a technical role to a trusted advisor role or consultant role," "brains alone are not enough - our senior technologists must become thought leaders capable of white-boarding solutions and articulating complex concepts to broad audiences of technical and nontechnical clients," and "engaging the technical experts directly with both internal and client decisions."

Five percent of participants want more client involvement from their technical experts. Recognizing the potential value they bring, they desire more face time with clients through the business development/fulfillment process. Comments regarding more client involvement included: "customers want to see more of the technical people early to see if they have the competence," "be more active in client engagements," and "higher level of customer interaction and support."

The Opportunity

As you’ve seen, the majority of professional services leaders expect more (a lot more, in many cases) of their technical experts. Based upon the dynamics of business and the major opportunity to further the talents of technical experts, this makes good business sense.

The Challenge

Yet, in almost all cases, services leaders still expect their technical experts to do all the other things asked of them in the past. When dedicated, hard-working people are asked to do more (such as contribute more to the organization through white papers or aggressively develop business), they will respond initially, but burnout and de-motivation follow if expectations are not lessened in other areas that may be important but not vital. This potential problem is further exacerbated by metrics that often reflect past priorities and not the current drivers of the business. Filling the wagon until the tires blow is not the most effective way to haul hay.

The Recommendations

1. Before you giveth, taketh away.

It is easy to say that you want 75% billability, ongoing contribution to intellectual property, publishable thought leadership, and a growing contribution to revenue, but it is quite another thing to effectively deliver on all of these over the long term. Sloppy work, de-motivation, and openness to new job opportunities occur when the load gets too heavy. Before asking for more outputs, eliminate or lessen expectations in other areas - this is good business.
2. Focus on the few. To determine what to give and what to take away, assess their current capabilities against client needs and your organization’s goals.  Determine the key desired results and the critical knowledge, skills, and mindset gaps needed to deliver them. Sort out the nice-to-do from the must-have capabilities and create and implement industry-specific, company-tailored, quality training to all your technical people.
3. Lead, don’t lag.
Change your performance management system to encourage the desired new behaviors and results. Nothing is more discouraging than having someone who wants to change their behavior, is struggling to do it, but achieves no (or very little) reward when they do it - or worse they are punished because the did not accomplish goals in other, less important areas. Once you have prioritized expectations, clearly communicate the top ones (usually, few is better), provide tools to support them, and establish consequences to motivate your people to do what you want them to do.

1. The State of Professional Services II: An Industry Comes of Age. James A. Alexander, Ed.D. 2004.

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Jim Alexander is founder of Alexander Consulting, a management consultancy that helps product companies create and implement professional services strategies. Alexander served as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s e-business subject-matter expert for its Inter-American E-Business Fellowship program and the services pundit for the IBM Global Services 2003 Headlights Program. A services industry thought leader, he has published over 80 articles, three white papers, two books, and five research studies, his latest being Turning Technical Experts into Trusted Advisors. He may be reached at (239)283-7400 or alex@alexanderstrategists.com

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