Career Transition from Technical to Business Management

I get asked quite often about transitioning from technical role to business function. It is a common career path for many in the industrial working environment where moving to business management is often, rightly or wrongly, viewed as a more exciting career path. It is important to point out the differences in the nature of technical problem solving and business management. Fundamentally, business management focuses on business objectives and generally has the desired outcome formulated from the start, while engineers and scientists with a problem solving and exploring mindset tend to shift focus depending on where the new information or facts lead to. Here are a few things to watch for if you are an earlier career business manager with a technical background.

• While technical problem tends to have a unique answer which would be the right answer, business issue in the real world rarely has one unique solution. It is often a fruitless exercise to find the right or best answer. Making a wrong decision is in most cases better than making no decision at all. The frequent lack of any "right" answer, can be foreign territory to technical people.
• Technically trained people naturally tend to focus on technical solution. In the real world, business solution can often be a more effective alternative. For example, it is often cheaper to seek out a license for a patent than trying to design around a patent which is often the default mindset for technical people. It is important to be able to overcome the inherent bias and stay open to new approaches.
• Perfection is the enemy of good enough. We as scientists strive for perfection, and often times, rightfully so – we want to show the best efforts we can to solve a problem. However, we need to always balance the organizational needs versus our desire for perfection, always calibrate the effort against the overall business objective.
• While unique and creative ideas are often positively recognized and encouraged in the technical field, you will more likely be challenged in the business world for doing things outside of the norm. Creativity is important for innovation regardless of your role. However, it is important to take the time to understand why things are done in certain way first. 

In summary, while people with technical background enjoy the advantage of their analytical skills in dealing with business issues, they, at the same time, have to be aware of the differences in mindsets for dealing with business issues in order to be successful in the transition.

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