Developing Skills in Technology and Communication with Mike Armatage
Listen to the Episode Here
Topics discussed in this episode
The expansive world of Information Technology (IT)
Skills for Success
Challenges in the Field
Advice for those looking to pursue a career in IT
Episode Summary - Introducing Mike Armatage
Hello everyone, Ryan here again! I loved chatting and interviewing my long-time best friend, Mike Armatage. He is an expert in his field, Information Technology (IT), and has a passion for working with electronics. Even after knowing him for so long and seeing his career journey, I still had my eyes opened to some of his experiences in this field as well as some of the hurdles that he ran into that he would have to resolve to be successful.
The Expansive World of IT
The field of IT is massive and there are hundreds upon thousands of niches in IT that someone can specialize in. The field is constantly evolving and expanding. Mike points to a few things that are needed to be successful and one of them is an ever growing hunger to learn and grow. Self-correction, adjustment, and improvement are given to those who thrive in the field while stagnation leads to struggles. Not only does a constant willingness to learn help someone succeed but it also helps them enjoy the work they do, which is almost more important. This is what helped him reduce burnout and maintain a level of excitement in the field because there is always innovation that progresses at a rate that you do not see in other fields.
Skills for Success
There is another element of success that I did not consider beforehand. Mike points to the importance of communicating IT principles and concepts in a way that paints a clear picture for those who need to become more familiar with the jargon and who need the information to make business decisions. Mike constantly finds himself in situations where C-suite executives need to make choices promptly but rely on his expertise not only in the field of IT but how it relates to every other part of the business be it customer satisfaction, accounting, efficiency, etc… He also talked about how many people in his field are generally introverted, like himself, and naturally do not have the social skills to implement these techniques. But he believes (and I agree) that they are skills that can be acquired in a short amount of time. This will require working through fears and anxieties relating to one’s competency in a field, ability to come across well in demeanor and speech, and the ability to build one’s reputation and image, among other things. This can lead to a lot of imposter syndrome for many people regardless of what field they are in, but Mike sees this in his field a lot.
Challenges in the field
We talked about how he was able to work through these struggles and become as successful as he has been. He shared an experience where they didn’t check out thoroughly enough the process of how a third-party company managed their computers. This led to a problem 6 months later when they switched companies to having to reset over 100 computers which is an expensive problem and one that would be time-consuming and delay many deadlines, not to mention make many employees frustrated. Mike was able to explore all of the options and pick the best one, write up all of the options clearly, and compile them in an email that explained truthfully the error his team had made that got them there in the first place. His email to higher-level executives allowed him to be able to defuse any future struggles with executives because they saw that Mike understood the problem, any errors that could be avoided, used data to assess the best option and could communicate it in such a way that made it easy to understand. This improved how others saw him and his team. It was not an issue of “Mike messed up” but rather “No matter the circumstance, good or stressful, Mike will be able to make the right choice” which helped him out greatly in his career.
This leads to another point I had not considered in his work. Despite working with technology, most of the problems that occur with tech are due to human error. There is something that someone messed up, whether that’s him or another user. There will be plenty of human interaction and that means that as he helps others, they are usually very frustrated, even if it isn’t with him. He is constantly dealing with stressed people who have to meet deadlines or who have been trying to work despite a problem but are at their wit’s end. Sometimes when he helps them, it is met with gratitude and thanks but there are still plenty of times when he cannot find a solution and has to go with a worst-case scenario which is sometimes getting an entirely new device, redoing lost work, or other miserable options the user wanted to avoid. While it isn’t Mike’s fault or even the user’s fault at times, everyone is frustrated. For Mike to be successful, he feels that learning to regulate his emotions and working with others who are dysregulated is something that he wasn’t expecting to have to do as much in his field but he feels is necessary more and more, especially as he moves up the corporate ladder.
Advice for people interested in pursuing a career in IT
There were lots of awesome things I learned about what it takes to be successful in IT, and many of these principles seem applicable in many other fields. The main ones were constant learning, communication skills, and emotional regulation. I noticed that he did not talk about having technology skills. Even though he did not have a background in tech before starting, he began his journey because he surrounded himself with the right people who were able to witness his good work and who wanted to help him out while he was receptive to accepting it.
For any of you who want to pursue a career in IT, take steps now! Be willing to learn and show that to your employers, practice communication and show you are willing to take on those responsibilities on behalf of your team, and lastly, show you can work through your own emotions and have empathy for those you work with as you help them. If you can show these and surround yourself with awesome people, you will likely have a similar story to Mike who stumbled upon this field because of great supervisors.
