5 Steps to Effectively Communicating with Your Executive Team

Summary

In this episode of the Automate IT podcast, Jeremy Maldonado discusses the importance of engaging with executive teams and the necessity of clear communication within organizations. He emphasizes the value of understanding team dynamics, preparing effectively for discussions, and aligning goals with organizational priorities to foster collaboration and drive success.

Transcript

Hello and welcome back. This is the internet and there are countless things that you could be looking at or listening to right now. And I'm very glad that you've chosen to come back and spend that time with me. My name is Jeremy and this is the Automate IT podcast. This is a monthly segment where I'm supposed to talk about automating IT and services, but I tend to just use this time to open up and talk about what I think is important in this industry that we all share. Today I wanted to talk about

working with your executive team. I want to ramble about what I think is necessary for getting your message across to the executive counterparts of your team. For some of us, getting our executives involved in some of our projects and initiatives might not seem like something crucial. It might not be something that you just think about on a day to day on a whim. But the truth of the matter is that our executives do care and want to see you succeed.

because in return you're making the whole effort of the organization succeed. What, I have a visitor. It's my executive, his name's Noah, he's a German Shepherd. But getting others involved, regardless of their level in the company, in consideration too for an executive position, getting them involved can offer so many benefits. So learning how to communicate with all levels within your organization, executive peers included.

is just a massive strength and I want to dive into a little bit of suggestions that I have from my experience in the industry. For one, knowing your team. I think that everyone's opinion will differ on how they think of other people based on their hierarchy of an organization, but I think that the best and healthiest way to consider this is that we are all teammates. Ideally, you are working with people who want to see you succeed.

whether they are your manager or your manager's manager or their manager, we should want to see our teammates excel. I know I do, and I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by people that want to see me do great things and do things that I'm passionate about and contribute where my passion and my skillset has been in the past. If I'm going to have time with a peer who is on an executive level or close to it, I want to be able to explain my goals in a way that they highlight how this affects other people.

By nature, we're able to explain why we are doing something that's good for us. But if we can remember to include the why of what we are doing for work and how it includes, how it impacts the people that are not ourselves, this allows others to feel engaged. When I suggest that you know your team, I suggest that you know what their mission is. If I want help for myself or I want advice or resources,

from a teammate or from any other person, how can I describe my goals so that my peer would want to help me in any way? If you know your team and you know your teammates and what they are passionate about and what they are trying to contribute to an organization, you can target their empathy or their goals and collaborate extremely well. We are all people and we're all human and we want to do work that excites us and work that we're proud of.

We do not need to think of people by their titles. We are far better off treating people like teammates, not like superiors and not like subordinates. So next on that topic of clear communication, when we're speaking to executives or teammates, but especially executive leaders, we have to consider that they are not in every meeting that we are in. They are not likely to be reading the same boards as often as we are.

engaged in the same threads that we are. When we get to speak on a certain topic, it's important that what actions we are taking or wanting to take are clear and well described. Can I foresee what questions are coming up? And if so, can I answer them myself? Our time might be limited and I don't want to take up too many minutes by having to backtrack or explain something that I just could have detailed better earlier. For anyone that's familiar with Scrum or has experience with Scrum,

the topic of writing a user story comes up. If you never had to write one or never had to read one, the de facto scrum user story is, as a blank, I would like blank, so that blank. So obviously, please do not use this as the basis for every conversation that you're ever gonna have after this. I would feel bad if this is how you explain to your friends that you had to have a Super Bowl party with 500 wings.

Flavored in 20 different sauces like know like what I mean is that in my own opinion this statement above as a blank I would like blank so that blank clearly states and clearly highlights what you want to do and why you want it. And also because the idea is that in this statement that I provided it's very clear of it in a single sentence I've perfectly described my intention for something.

Can we elaborate? Absolutely. But at a surface level, we've made it easy to understand exactly what we're pursuing by us collaborating.

So when, know, a user story being a good example, but I do believe that when it comes to speaking to your teammates, regardless of where they sit in your work chart, you should be yourself. You do not have to pretend to be anyone else. You just have to make sure that your priorities are good and well explained. One day I came across a YouTube video and I know what you're thinking. Like this was about like high level systems engineering or like managing.

High volume of Linux packages or like top tier security recommendations of Microsoft Endpoints. No, this was about an undercover FBI agent. Who was who was reviewing movies. But the reason why that sat with me is because the agent from this video talking about his past experience in being an undercover FBI agent. He discussed five steps.

whenever he was about to go into an undercover operation. And so I've made cards for these five steps. I think that we can use this for going into these communications or these efforts where I might need to collaborate with different people amongst my org chart. Here are these five steps.

Preparation. Step two, preparation. Step three, preparation. Step four, preparation. And step five.

Do the thing.

If I only have a few minutes to gain help or insider support regarding a goal that I'm passionate about, I'm going to make sure that I know how to fully explain my topic. I'm going to make sure that I know how to fully showcase the value of what I'm doing and why it impacts my team.

or my company and my users or my customers, I do not think that there's such thing as being over prepared. And I don't mean to harp too much on this, but if you are prepared and you're passionate about something, preparation will come naturally. Being prepared and passionate will help you to give things clarity. When we're working with our executive team or anyone else for that matter, we want to articulate our goals, the value that our goals bring and the values and our goals.

if accomplished the values that it brings to our team, our organization, and our customers, clarity is the foundation of effective communication. I learned that from the FBI agent too. I like that one. That one would have looked better on this flash card. But what we want to strive for is giving our work the best impact to our organization. Success does not always.

need to be about meeting expectations. It can be about creating good partnerships and relationships that drive meaningful results in the future. When you align your efforts with the priorities of your leadership, you're not just advancing your work, you're empowering your entire organization to move forward. I want to thank everyone once again that may has made it this far. As always, I appreciate time. My name is Jeremy. I'm a professional services team member here at Automox.

Please consider checking out our university. We have monthly webinars for expert insights We would be honored to have you join us for any one of those, but if nothing else Please remember to be kind to yourself at work and at home, and I'll see you next time.