Executive translation

One of the biggest frustrations I see (and I've had personally, if I'm being honest) is that executives are sometimes missing details. That leads to assertions or direction that you may think is wrong. Once upon a time I told the executive exactly why they're wrong, and was surprised when they became defensive or told me that I didn't understand.

Will Larson states that "executives are generally directionally correct but specifically wrong, and it’s your job to understand the overarching direction without getting distracted by the narrow errors in their idea", which I love.

People cry out against the idea that it's their job to educate their executives. The exec is more senior, surely they should understand the context? Larson has this to say:

For what it’s worth, I agree with them, that would be more fair, but I’ve always found it much more productive to focus on how I can improve my approach than to document ways that others could improve theirs.

So, what can you do? Listen, synthesise and translate their vision into something useful:

Often you’ll hear an executive say something that you disagree with, and in that moment you have to determine whether you can directly steer the executive towards a better decision. If you can, then do that! If you can’t, then focus on translating the executive’s idea into something useful!

Many high-agency managers try to prevent executives from doing silly things, but it’s almost always more effective to translate their energy for a silly thing into energy for a useful thing. It also leaves the executive feeling supported by your work rather than viewing you as an obstacle to their progress.