LFCE Faculty Profile:
David Lum
The Sky’s the Limit: Uniting Business and Technology
David Lum has spent a lifetime soaring, literally. A private pilot, aviation is one of many interests. In work and play, he’s drawn to mastering new skills, testing his know-how, and sharing his experience.
During his 24-year career with Motorola, Lum’s intellectual curiosity and people skills have propelled him to pursue diverse challenges. His experience ranges from engineering, product development, and project management, to training, sales, and business development. He also gained international experience
working in Singapore for five years in business development for Motorola’s Asia/Pacific division. Currently, Lum is Director of Asia/Pacific Product and Support Operations for Motorola’s Networks and Enterprise business in Schaumburg.
An award-winning instructor for the LFGSM MBA program since 1993, Lum joined the LFCE faculty in 2005. “I’m impressed by LFCE’s focus on customizing programs to meet clients’ needs,” he notes. The praise is mutual. “David makes classroom learning come alive with real-world anecdotes and practical applications— a perfect match for our learning approach,” says Kathy Leck, LFCE Executive Vice President.
Lum is quick to highlight people skills and business acumen as being key to leveraging technical expertise. With an engineering degree from the University of Illinois, he soon discovered that leading, managing, and teaching enriched his professional life. To expand his business perspective, he earned a master’s in Science in management from LFGSM in 1990. “I’m thankful I attended LFGSM,” he says. “I came for an education and left with a wealth
of experience.”
From Motorola training sessions to the Lake Forest MBA program and LFCE, Lum delights in teaching. “Interacting with adults with diverse backgrounds is exciting. Often, I learn as much as I teach!” he says. Lum also authors articles and speaks internationally on business and technology issues. Recently, he appeared on the expert panel of LFCE’s well-received Unleashing the Business Potential of IT Professionals seminar. He also served as an instructor for the LFCE Business Leadership Certificate Program for IT Professionals on its initial launch.
Here, Lum offers insights on how technical professionals can hone their business skills and expand their business impact.
Adopt a broader point of view. It’s easy for functional experts to become immersed in their specialties’ details. After all, we’ve been praised and rewarded for our technical expertise. Yet this strength has a downside.
Technical professionals can forget that others might not fully understand the
world they work in. Resist assuming your business colleagues know what you
do and how you do it. At the same time, don’t be too quick to assume you see
the complete business context of a situation. Unless you’ve worked in
the business world, it’s tough to fully understand all the issues and pressures that exist there. Bottom line: Work to broaden your perspective.
Get a practical education and use it! Appropriate and timely application of knowledge will help you win. Anyone who views business classes as “just” an education is squandering this opportunity. Approach every assignment as a learning experience. Then, immediately apply what you learn in real life.
Also, be selective in the education you choose. For technical specialists and technologists, I recommend the Lake Forest MBA and LFCE approach for one very specific reason: They teach the practical and people side of business as well as theory. The real world has complexities that theory can’t address. Real-world application and people skills, together with theory, help you appropriately apply what you’ve learned. Remember, it’s what you do with your education that counts.
Grow beyond being an individual contributor. Having expertise probably has already made you an invaluable contributor. But, to magnify your impact and increase your influence on a project’s final outcome as a project manager, you need discipline and good people skills. Technical specialists and technologists in particular should realize that people skills are the glue that holds it all together. The abilities to be a team player, earn the respect of your
team, assume personal accountability for results, and build influence within your organization are critical for success.
Blending expertise with real-world application is David Lum’s forte. “I still draw on lessons I learned during my business degree studies 17 years ago,” Lum says. “I hope I can teach my students lessons that they draw on five, 10 years down the road. That’s my measure of success.”
