Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#1

Post by saimiam » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 3:50 AM UTC

Yesterday, I was talking to a product manager friend who used to be a country head for revenue at a B2B company. He went off on a rant about how annoying and dispiriting it was to talk to tech people.

According to him, this sentiment that tech people are unpleasant to deal with is quite pervasive at executive levels across multiple industry verticals.

As a tech person myself, I knew many of us were opinionated and brash but this was eye opening.

Does my friend's opinion align with your experience as well? What goes wrong when talking to tech people? How can this be improved?

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#2

Post by pinewurst » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 4:10 AM UTC

Depends on the tech people, speaking as current product management. Some were wonderful, interested in customers and business, and added a lot to my knowledge (and I hope theirs too). Some were horrible, seeming only to care about their language/tool cult de jour and to hell with the resultant product/business.

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#3

Post by saimiam » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 4:28 AM UTC

pinewurst wrote: post #2

Depends on the tech people, speaking as current product management. Some were wonderful, interested in customers and business, and added a lot to my knowledge (and I hope theirs too). Some were horrible, seeming only to care about their language/tool cult de jour and to hell with the resultant product/business.

Were you able to find a way to work with the “horrible” ones? What were some issues with the worst tech counterparts?

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#4

Post by QuarterRoy » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 4:28 AM UTC

I’ve talked to multiple C-level execs in my career.

There are many different leadership and communication styles but at that level you need to be succinct, direct, and know at least something about the business challenges they have.

A lot of technical employees want to jump right into technical problem solving - and sometimes that’s fine given context and audience or if you already have a relationship with the audience - but in my experience you need to understand their world and how what what you bring to the table is relating to the business and their direct care abouts.

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#5

Post by aq9 » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 4:37 AM UTC

As someone who has been in both tech IC (individual contributor) and higher management levels, this is often a relatively simple result of impedance mismatch (excluding bad faith individuals for now):

ICs and lower level managers are all about inputs and outputs, blocking and tackling, getting shit done.

At the higher management levels it is all about setting direction, setting the "tone", "getting the culture right".

There is just so little concerns that intersect between these groups, that communication becomes a challenge.

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#6

Post by saimiam » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 4:57 AM UTC

QuarterRoy wrote: post #4

I’ve talked to multiple C-level execs in my career. There are many different leadership and communication styles but at that level you need to be succinct, direct, and know at least something about the business challenges they have. A lot of technical employees want to jump right into technical problem solving - and sometimes that’s fine given context and audience or if you already have a relationship with the audien…

How do we resolve this tension between tech jumping straight into solutioning and an executive concerned about business challenges?

If a C-level executive keeps having to listen to tech people offer solution after solution, does this mean a translation layer is missing between them?

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#7

Post by saimiam » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

aq9 wrote: post #5

As someone who has been in both tech IC (individual contributor) and higher management levels, this is often a relatively simple result of impedance mismatch (excluding bad faith individuals for now): ICs and lower level managers are all about inputs and outputs, blocking and tackling, getting shit done. At the higher management levels it is all about setting direction, setting the "tone", "getting the culture right"…

Even mid managers have expressed similar concerns to me about finding it difficult to work with tech. E.g., a product manager has complained to me that they wanted a feature built which would have had a direct revenue impact but were stuck because the tech team wanted to "triage" which she didn't understand.

Sounds to me that we need a "tech-to-normal" language translator.

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#8

Post by gsatic » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 5:03 AM UTC

It's a function of how both accumulate influence/respect/trust/power.

The paths taken are (generally) very different.

So what each thinks is possible or not is based on different paths travelled.

For certain types of problems the paths will diverge. Some people handle this well and some people don't.

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#9

Post by saimiam » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

gsatic wrote: post #8

It's a function of how both accumulate influence/respect/trust/power. The paths taken are (generally) very different. So what each thinks is possible or not is based on different paths travelled. For certain types of problems the paths will diverge. Some people handle this well and some people don't.

I'm finding your comment very abstract. Can you share an example of this in action?

Re: Ask HN: Why do so many CXOs hate talking to tech teams?

#10

Post by pinewurst » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 5:48 AM UTC

saimiam wrote: post #3

pinewurst wrote: post #2

Depends on the tech people, speaking as current product management. Some were wonderful, interested in customers and business, and added a lot to my knowledge (and I hope theirs too). Some were horrible, seeming only to care about their language/tool cult de jour and to hell with the resultant product/business.

Were you able to find a way to work with the “horrible” ones? What were some issues with the worst tech counterparts?

The worst were actively disruptive even directly lobbying customers though that verged on termination/legal action. Much of it could be construed as coming from an internal sense of virtue but so utterly unworldly that it was destructive. Ultimately I could work with these people once they were made to understand some sense of consequences.