IT Tech Lingo is Lost in Translation

A new study shows that tech professionals need to brush up on their communication skills to avoid tech talk getting lost in translation. The study shows that non executive tech professionals often have a hard time communicating tech problems to their superiors.

Less than 40% of the tech professionals interviewed used business language when communicating with their company’s leaders.  This trend is indicative of the bigger problem that many IT professionals haven’t developed the communication skills to communicate with non-IT professionals.

"IT security professionals tend to focus on granular, technical information, but senior leadership wants to focus on how security can protect business goals like revenue growth, profit, competitive agility and customer satisfaction. This ability to communicate the value of information security in terms easily understood by the rest of the business is a critical skill for career success in IT security," said Dwayne Melancon, the chief technology officer at Tripwire. 

Two of the main issues that IT professionals are afraid to communicate about are risk management and security threats. Unfortunately, those are two of the most important and imperative issues facing most businesses and there is no room for miscommunication on those fronts. Security threats could be detrimental to an organization if not handled properly and if everyone isn’t on the same page. Other issues that IT professionals have a hard time communicating about are compliance, budgets and employee education. 

IT tech lingo can often have it’s own language. The problem is important topics can be lost in translation when IT professionals are communicating with their IT superiors. A solution would be to educate IT professionals on communication skills to make for smoother workplace communications.