The Executive Brief
The vast majority of CTOs are engineers at heart. We love the intricate technical details. Sometimes we miss the days when we were but lowly engineers, hunched over our IDEs making magic happen.
You know who doesn’t care about the technical details? Your peers. Your boss. The Board. There are exceptions, of course. You might be working with a technical CEO or have a technical member of your Board. But they are the exception, not the rule.
For everyone else, technical details are barriers to communication. They have their own problems, and hearing about how the MySQL database is experiencing excessive write contention isn’t helping solve them.
In this article, I talk about pitching your communications to focus on what matters most to your audience by getting the right balance of tech-to-business.
Stop Explaining the Technical Details
As a CTO or Technology Leader, 90% of stakeholders you come in contact with such as bosses, other execs, Board members and partners usually don’t care a lot about the technical details of how you’re going to deliver.
But, many CTOs can’t help themselves from getting deep in the weeds. This can be anything from talking about software architecture, to discussing the technical stack, to going on about data science or machine learning algorithms.
Most stakeholders just don’t care!
So, why do CTOs make this common mistake?
Maybe it’s because most leaders want to prove their worth. As if to show people that all those years of technical work really does mean something.
Or, perhaps it’s because CTOs think they can build credibility by talking through the deep technical details.
Or, it could be because of a need to “show off” their technical prowess or promote themselves in front of their non-technical peers.
The difference between “tech-splaining” and what most successful CTOs do is night and day. Next-level and “elite” CTOs are able to hit a sweet-spot of communication which is neither too technical, nor too business-focused.
In my estimation about 10% to 20% of Technology Leaders can achieve this “elite” balance on a consistent basis. The other 80% to 90% err much too far on the technical side. And perhaps < 1% are optimized too much for just the business-side.
So, how do you unstick yourself and stop “Tech-Splaining”?
There are 3 strategies I’ve seen leaders use to level-up. These are fairly easy to execute on and will get you into the “elite” CTO mindset.
3 Strategies to Stop “Tech-Splaining”
Read less about pure tech and more about the impact of tech
Write a lot about the business implications of tech
Practice speaking about what you write
Let’s talk about each one.
Most B-level CTOs are reading 10 to 15 deeply technical articles per week. Maybe even more. Often, this is to keep up with the fast pace of technological change and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But to unstick yourself from being too technical and go from B to A-level, substitute in 2 to 3 articles a week that focus on the business impact of technology. For example, how AI will impact highly regulated industries like HealthTech.
Most CTOs aren’t the best at writing. But writing is truly where you create the magic of turning yourself into an “elite” CTO. Start by writing from a business perspective in your day-to-day (decks, docs, etc). Reduce the tech jargon and increase how much you focus on the business outcomes and implications. It will be challenging at first because you’re not used to it. But simply start with the next deck you have to create and start speaking more the language of business.
Of course, just writing alone won’t get you fully into the elite CTO camp. You also have to be able to talk the talk. This part is simple in concept. Take your improved decks and documents and practice them with an audience on a routine basis. So, for example do more presentations at work, at conferences, webinars, at home with your spouse…whatever you have to do to practice the new sweet-spot of tech and business you’ve developed for yourself.
Breaking out of the habit of “tech-splaining” is difficult but quite important to changing your fundamental approach to communicating at work as a CTO.
If you can make this leap, it can truly be transformational to your leadership & career — less “tech-splaining” and more business talk helps you build bridges to other stakeholders and increase your influence.
Here are some other articles from Technocratic that you may enjoy as well: