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Comment by king_panic | Hacker News Reader

I am an app developer who interfaces with c-suite executives weekly.

Every time I get into the weeds with them I lose their attention. EVERY time. They don't care about the technical aspects of my solutions, they care about what it means to their customers functionality, the price they pay for the solution or the time it takes a product to be delivered. So I put things in those terms. I NEVER get very technical anymore unless it's absolutely required.

In short, summarize your choices, decisions and solutions in high level language from the perspective of what they care about -- that's it.

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One thing that makes this especially difficult: you will feel like you're leaving out critical information, from your perspective. An executive summary or similar communication should include the key details for high-level understanding and decision-making, not the key details for engineering, operation, or implementation. This will run right up against the fundamental human desire to be understood, because you know the person you're talking to doesn't have the complete picture of the system that you have in your head. When you're in the process of giving an explanation, it'll feel important to add those extra details to convey that rich picture. But the person you're talking to may not need that level of detail.

In short when communicating with anyone outside of engineering, figure out what they care about and speak to that.

That is great advice for anyone, anywhere!

Thanks! This is the condensed version of what the OP's manager is asking him to do. As mentioned elsewhere, also keep in mind you can't change peoples' minds or make a decision for them, you have to present the your case so that your audience comes to the conclusion you want them to.

I 100% agree. And one of the tricks I believe for this to work is that the first step is listening. And when you're tempted to talk, don't. Listen more. Ask questions in the vocabulary they're using if you want clarification, but primarily just keep listening.

Because that is how you figure out what it is they actually care about.

Yep! I agree as well, the less you speak, the more you listen, the better!

Here's a useful signal: If you are getting crickets or curt responses ("ok", "great") after you finish speaking, then you are not talking their language.

This was the first sign I wasn't communicating effectively in my client-facing role.

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