How To Get Your Boss’s Boss to Understand
The things that are new and different in the book’s second edition
This is the title of most of my half-day and full-day workshops. It is also the short title of my 2017 book. The long title is “Communicating Reliability, Risk, and Resiliency to Decision Makers: How to Get Your Boss’s Boss to Understand.”
A New Company and a Pandemic
The book’s second edition was slated for June 2020, the third anniversary of its original publish date. However, I left the Fortune 500 and founded a new company in late 2019. Something called COVID-19 struck a few months later. Leading a startup during a pandemic is the short version of why the second edition will be released on the fifth anniversary in June of this year.
The Target Audience
Technical professionals are the target audience. Or the loved ones of technical professionals.
Technical professionals often do not get the promotions, salary increases, or recognition that they deserve because they are poor communicators. However, most do not realize this limitation or how to improve it until it is too late in their career.
What inspired the book?
I began doing some presentations on communicating technical information around 2010. The response led me to start doing some half-day and full-day workshops. In 2016, a group of colleagues encouraged me to write the book based on the workshop materials and the stories along the way.
“I have sufficient tools and approaches… what I really need is a way to get my boss’s boss to understand.”
What are three guiding principles for technical professionals communicating complexity and uncertainty?
- Communicating as a trusted advisor is different than communicating for marketing or political purposes.
- The burden of effective communication is on the sender, not the receiver.
- Have empathy for the decision maker — it is about the decision maker, not you.
What are the best things about the book?
- The book fills a gap. There are few books on the market related to communications as a trusted advisor.
- Practical — based on proven techniques used in workshops and in by practitioners.
- Best reference material (bibliography) in print on this topic.
What is new in the second edition?
- Chapter 10 — For the Boss’s Boss. The workshops generate a lot of interest from senior management who attend and want to improve their technical staff’s capabilities.
- More case examples, especially in first three chapters. Stories are one of my strong suits, but the first edition made me recognize that there were too much pure instruction and not enough stories in the earler versions of the workshops.
- Additional content in five chapters
- Improved formatting
- Introduction of Communicating with FINESSE
Something surprising
It has been surprising how many spouses and loved ones buy the book for their technical professional. As a technical professional, I underestimated how much concern our lack of communication skill concerns and distresses those who are most close to us. Effective communication is indeed the most important aspect of our lives.
Communicating with FINESSE is the community of technical professionals dedicated to being highly effective trusted advisors and getting the boss’s boss to understand. Learn more about our publications, webinars and workshops.
