As circumstances and market conditions continue to change, increasing numbers of specialists, trained in specific areas, like medicine, are faced with managerial tasks which differ significantly from their traditional functions. Professors Karen A. Brown of Thunderbird School of Global Management and Nancy Lee Hyer of Owen School of Management argue in their latest book that stakeholders cannot afford to overlook the pressures this transition places on their senior employees and are well-advised to assist them in dealing with this challenge. In fact, with growing standards of management that start to bind in nearly all disciplines, the role of project manager has become increasingly more common for employees whose formal education does not entirely qualify them to carry it out.  Another factor that contributes to this process is rising complexity of operations and resources that calls for managerial professionalism not only from full-time managers but also from the so-called accidental managers. Neither should be denied access to top executive training if a company is to thrive.

Indeed, the job of handling a team of people does count as the greatest struggle to those whose origin is in non-business background.  For them, the transformation is not only about new responsibilities, but essentially about a completely new kind of thinking which has to bridge the gap between detailed technical requirements typical of their fields of operation, which they usually know in depth, and more long-term and big-picture reasoning that involves substantial amounts of intricacy and doubt that is associated with delegating tasks.  The second skill, even if the project is firmly rooted in accidental managers' expertise, stretches their cognitive abilities and often goes against their professional instincts. It takes time and top executive training to refocus specialists to enable them to make the most of the projects they lead.

In fact, it is not only the question of being able to comprehend both individual components and the complex process that can strain managers who are learning to operate outside their specialist disciplines. Far more exposed to internal and external politics, managing projects entails an extended set of interpersonal skills that make it possible to successfully cope with non-technical issues that keep appearing in the course of any project.  Again, what is needed is a balance between understanding technical and political demands.   Finally, managers with non-business background are often tied up by rigors characteristic of their respective expert areas, which can be quite severe, like in engineering or medicine. More unpredictable and less regulated, business projects tend to put any rigors to strenuous tests, setting a premium on the ability to adapt.  Whether accidental or full-time, project managers are more effective after developing all necessary skills with top executive training instructors.