One of the aspects of technology transfer that I find most fascinating is not working with cutting-edge technology, but its human component.
Technology shapes society and culture, influencing how we feel, think and act. However, humans have the capacity and responsibility to shape technology. Humans generate new knowledge and craft innovative technologies. Humans are also in charge of designing and managing knowledge exchange and technology transfer actions.
This is why, in some ways, technology transfer strongly benefits from building and managing trustworthy relationships. To achieve this, emotional intelligence is fundamental.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, discriminate, and use emotions to guide our thoughts and actions. This includes our emotions and those of the people we interact with. Emotions are data, says psychologist Susan David. Harnessing emotions and responding appropriately to them can help us thrive in many contexts including knowledge and technology transfer.
Licensing agreements are a great case example in which emotional intelligence is critical within technology transfer.
In a licensing agreement, a research team passes the baton of commercialization to a new team. This involves the transfer of existing know-how and assets, but can also extend to new joint development. In a sense, all licensing agreements are partnership agreements. To make this transfer happen, at least two teams of people need to engage deeply, work together and adjust to each other.
From a knowledge perspective, the teams generally start from different expertise levels and must actively collaborate to find a middle ground and the best way to leverage each other’s capacities in such positive-sum partnerships. From a cultural perspective, the teams belong to different organizations and are thus exposed to different values, missions, and incentives. These knowledge and cultural differences tend to reinforce the biases with which each team faces the challenges that crop up along the way.
Emotions can run high as the teams go through shared learnings, discoveries, and achievements, but also through undesired commitments, disagreements, and misunderstandings. To deal with these factors while keeping the focus on making the transfer end goal successful, the emotional intelligence of those responsible and involved in the process plays a prominent role.
A second aspect in which emotional intelligence can help is communicating more effectively during technology transfer actions.
For instance, in technology transfer, convincing the right person to take a leap of faith can have a big impact on pushing early-stage technologies out of the lab. Therefore, the effect of convincing the right people about the upside and value of new technologies can be immeasurable. While it is hard to find people with a clear product-market fit or killer application in their hands, it is critical to make the most out of every conversation.
When we pitch, brainstorm, and explore the technology fit with potential customers or partners, being aware of emotions in the room can help us communicate and engage more effectively. For example, during these conversations, it is important to embrace and utilize feedback about our proposals or assumptions, especially when negative. Similarly, one must identify underlying signs of hesitance and doubt and delve deeper until they are thoroughly understood. Creating a trustworthy atmosphere is key to convincing people to take the leap of faith and commit to further validation or development.
Finally, a third aspect of technology transfer that is characterized by the importance of human engagement is negotiations and conflict resolution. In these situations, multiple stakeholders face each other with different interests and priorities, though not necessarily incompatible. To navigate these complex situations and productively team up, it is important to be aware of the needs and constraints of every stakeholder.
In these conversations, empathy helps us to get into someone else’s shoes, generosity helps us give in to others for the greater good, and assertive speaking helps us communicate our position. These three attributes, which are modulated by our emotional intelligence, are fundamental for negotiation and conflict resolution.
Ultimately, it is clear that people involved in technology transfer should cultivate their emotional intelligence and people skills.
The role of the transfer professional is not to be the greatest technical expert but to build a feasible business case around new technologies and enable their commercialization journey. A big part of the technology transfer success is based on building, trusting, and empowering human relations.
However, it is also important to acknowledge that everyone has a unique set of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. I believe that the best way to expand our emotional intelligence is with on-the-ground experience and this requires three conditions:
- the opportunity to be exposed to diverse and challenging experiences,
- that these take place in an environment that tolerates learning by mistake, and most importantly
- that there is a personal attitude toward self-reflection and improvement that allows absorbing the potential learnings to which one is exposed.