Staff+ Engineering — Executive Communication

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17 Mar 2024

Preface

In my progression from an individual contributor to an engineering leader, I have noticed a change in the communication paradigms that paved the way for my periods of transition. Whether I am in a situation where I need to communicate with technical depth or switch gears to drive high level strategic discussions, the fundamental guiding principle was the same — keep your audience in mind. There is no quicker way to lose your audience than talking past the intended recipient of your message at the wrong level of zoom.
In this article, I will breakdown some of the mental models that allow me to upshift or downshift the level of communication depending on which types of meetings I transition through in a given day.

Grains of Sand

© Olga Khoroshunova | Dreamstime.com
When it comes down to it, software engineering is about the bits and the bytes. The lower the stack that you travel, the closer you get to the raw source of how everything is wired and integrated together. It’s like the grains of sand on a beach. With those small building blocks, you can create anything — from sand animals to sand castles.
In order to deliver quality software, having a low level mastery on the technical details is crucial. Not only for delivering quality software but it becomes the currency that you gain a reputation of credibility with your colleagues. Having someone strong in their knowledge becomes highly valued when you can be a good teammate that helps to debug, teach and learn from.
Inductive Communciation — Drawing a Conclusion
When it comes to sharing ideas, the patterns of communication closely mimic how you build software. The imperative nature of coding where the mental model reinforces a methodical step-by-step approach to deterministically arrive at an expected output. When this is the prevailing mental model, it reinforces a type of inductive communication pattern. You have a tendency to speak like you think in laying out each detail to lead up to your conclusion.

Stargazing

© Nuttawut Uttamaharad | Dreamstime.com
With Executives, their gaze is towards the limitless wonders of the stars. The vast expanse of potential and how to invest in the future by charting a course for where they need to be.

The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.
— Carl Sagan

It is a stark contrast to shaping grains of sand, yet similar in many ways. The sheer number of decisions and considerations for how to steer the company or team requires a different methodology. One that is based on rough estimation instead of precision because strategy inherently is out of your control. (read more here)
Deductive Communication — Start With the Conclusion
The type of environment the exeuctive operates necessitates deductive communication to capitalize on every minute of efficiency. The process of making their point and then laying out how they arrived at that conclusion only if necessary. You might see an example of this in a powerpoint deck with summary slides in the front of the presentation followed by a large corpus of information in the appendices.

Hourglass of Communication

Hourglass of Communication
Time is precious and efficiency means getting straight to the point. The illustration above juxtaposes stars and sand together to illustrate a few points when presenting to leadership.

There is depth in the sand that cannot be communicated efficiently.
There is perspective in the stars that cannot be communicated effectively.
In the middle, there is a shared space for debate upwards or downwards.

As a Staff+ Engineer, the moment you are in a meeting communicating with executives, you should be aware that time is counting down and you have limited time to make your points. Pulling an executive into the sand will be a surefire way lose your audience as they make their minds are in a different mental space.

Up Shifting for Staff+ Engineers

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For Staff+ engineers, the need will be uplevel skills in shifting up your messaging and talking with deductive communication patterns. The topic is outlined by Dr Grace Lee in her video, Why Your Less-Experienced Colleagues Are Promoted Instead of You!.
She lays out the points that the marketplace values communication to the highest level of value. I believe that this is important as the stargazers need to be able to understand the subject at hand to incorporate into their strategy. They cannot do that if they either can’t understand it or don’t have the time to count grains of sand.
Advice

Start with the End — by communicating your points through deductive communication.
Question the Stars — there is most likely perspective or context that you don’t see, asking questions will help you gain perspective.
Drop the Sand — the small details do matter but perhaps not as much in this moment with limited time.

Down Shifting for Executives

© Egor Novikov | Dreamstime.com
For executives, I would advocate that they also take time to downshift communications to understand what’s going on at the ground level. Time is precious yet if you never walk the floors, you could be missing crucial firsthand knowledge to steer strategic decisions. There are many notable CEOs like Jack Welsh and Lee Iacocca that would walk the factory floor to engage with employees at all levels to stay grounded and knowledgeable about what’s going on.
In “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell explores various factors that contribute to high levels of success and failure. One of the notable discussions in the book revolves around the concept of “Power Distance Index” (PDI), which measures the extent to which less powerful members of organizations accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. Gladwell uses this concept to analyze a series of plane crashes, illustrating how high power distance in certain cultures can lead to communication barriers between airline pilots and co-pilots, ultimately contributing to accidents.
This analysis is particularly important for leaders and organizations because it underscores the significance of fostering an environment where subordinates feel comfortable voicing their opinions and concerns. Leaders must be approachable and encourage open dialogue to prevent mistakes and improve decision-making processes.

Closing Thoughts

© Sophia Granchinho | Dreamstime.com
My hope is that this article provides some insights for software engineers that might feel a bit stuck in their careers and trying to achieve that next level to Staff Engineer and beyond. The trick is that it’s not the technical skills that you may be lacking but rather your approach to communication with key decision makers. They are the ones that hold the sponsorhip opportunities and investment budgets. So take your technical expertise and bring it up a few layers of abstraction closer to the business world.