The 10 Best Ways to Manage Your Geeks

Are you well-versed in the care and feeding of your geek team? If not, you could be squandering one of your most important assets.

As with any employee, your technical folks need to be engaged, motivated, and, yes, happy at work in order for you to maximize their productivity and their value to your company. But geeks, so to speak, can be seen as a bit of a different species.

Alexander Kjerulf, who writes regularly about happiness and how to foster a happier work environment, recently referred to a post he wrote a few years back about how not to lead geeks. It's chock-full of great advice and still seems timely, especially in light of the motivation challenges facing managers in this economy.

A few of his suggestions:

• Offer recognition. Some managers might not understand exactly what their techs do, which makes it hard to reward their work. That hurts motivation. If that's your situation, work with your geeks to define a set of goals you both agree upon; when the goals are met, you'll know they're doing a great job and can give them the praise, recognition, and rewards that matter.
• Avoid management-speak. I for one hate corporate jargon -- and according to Alexander, a former geek himself, so do your tech experts, who see it as superficial and dishonest. Just tell someone, "We have to be on time with this project" rather than saying, "We need to proactively impact our time-to-market."
• Don't make tech decisions without them. Geeks usually know the technical side of the business better than the managers do, so forgoing their advice or input can be a big (and costly) mistake.

(image by philip-odegard via Flickr, CC 2.0)