As a manager in Marketing or IT technology, it’s important to not only develop your team members understanding of technology and performance, it is also important to coach them how to be business-minded technologists.To be truly successful within a business organization, every contributor needs to understand the business. However, this is often lost on your individual contributors, especially within technology fields. And that, I believe, is the manager/directors responsibility. For instance, within the field of web development, each developer or designer or programmer, should think first about the business needs. What are the key drivers for my company’s business success? Perhaps it is lead generation. If so, what is our main demographic? How does our web presence contribute to the goal of improved efficiency of our lead generation? Understanding that will inform your architecture or programming or design. Each team member should think like the business person they ultimately serve.As a leader, you can help break down the KPIs and business model for your teams.Ask business-minded questions in 1:1s with your team members to guage there understanding levelThrough discussion help them articulate those needsHave them state 3 ways the project they are working on will serve the business needsTeach them to evaluate each stakeholder requirement through that lensEncourage them to offer revised solutions that can more effectively address those requirements from a technical perspectiveInvolve you team in higher level discussions of purpose for projectsDirect them to include at least two solutions, one with a short term, faster turn-around and one with a longer-term, but more elegant solution, but both should still focus on the business needs.It may take some time to help your teams fully understand and implement this extra level of thinking, but it will help elevate your team within your organization, and improve the career paths of each of your direct reports.You can watch each of my podcasts on Spotify or YouTube, as well as listen on iHeartRadio and Amazon Music.