🎤 Executive Communication

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Part 1. Speaking Business Language

Part 2. Framing & Positioning Ideas

Part 3. Strategic Storytelling

Part 4. Adapting to Your Audience

Part 5. Influencing Decisions

Part 6. Executive Presence

Speaking Business Language

Learning to translate design decisions into the metrics that stakeholders care about: revenue, risk, and ROI.

Language as Currency: Why your vocabulary is the primary gatekeeper to leadership.
Risk is the Real Language of Leadership: How to stop talking about “delight” and start talking about risk mitigation.
You Sound Like You’re Selling Cupcakes, Not Solving Business Problems: A guide to removing “design-speak” that shuts down executive interest.
Silent Career Killer #32: Mistaking Strategic Fluency for Strategic Power: Why knowing the buzzwords isn’t the same as speaking with authority.

The art of presenting your work so it feels like a solution to a problem the business already has.

Solving the Wrong Problem Perfectly: How to frame your initial research to prevent waste on the wrong strategic path.
How to Frame Research as a Team Win (Not a Delay): Positioning insights as accelerators for the product roadmap.
Reframing UX impact: From numbers to narratives: Moving from dry spreadsheet metrics to strategic stories that stick with stakeholders.
Stop Letting YOUR UX Impact Disappear into “Product Metrics”: (Silent Career Killer #16) How to position your unique contribution within a broader team win.

Using narrative structures to gain buy-in and make your presentations unforgettable.

Power Through Storytelling: Turning Updates into Narratives: How to stop “reporting” and start “influencing” through story.
Unconventional Do’s and Don’ts of UX Storytelling: Practical tactics for crafting a narrative arc in your case studies.
Elevate Your Presentations with Emotional Hooks: Why logic alone rarely wins an executive room.
The AI Strategy Narrative That’s Getting UXers Promoted Right Now: How to weave AI into your career story without sounding like a hype-chaser.

Tailoring your message for the CEO, the PM, or the Engineer to ensure your point lands.

What Stakeholders Need to Hear (But You’re Not Saying): Identifying the specific anxieties and goals of different executive personas.
How to Guide Your CEO’s Enthusiasm for “Shiny New Features”: Adapting your feedback to match the visionary mindset of a founder.
When Stakeholders Know Just Enough UX to Be Dangerous: How to redirect surface-level critiques back toward strategic outcomes.

Tactics for navigating friction and ensuring design has a direct impact on the final product.

The Designer Who Made a CEO Cry (And Got Promoted for It): Using radical honesty and well-timed friction to influence a pivot.
The Art of the Strategic “No”: How to push back on bad ideas in a way that builds trust rather than burning bridges.
Why your input keeps getting ignored (and the 2-minute fix): Mastering the “influence window” to provide feedback when it actually counts.
The “Political Intelligence” Playbook: Ensuring your documentation leads to action, not just a “thanks”.

Projecting the authority and confidence required to be viewed as a leader, not just a practitioner.

Expertise without Executive Presence: (Silent Career Killer #45) Why being the smartest person in the room is a liability if you don’t look like a leader.
You’re Still Asking for Feedback. And That’s Why You’re Not “in the Room”: Shifting from a “student” mindset to a leadership presence.
Stop Being “FORGETTABLY GOOD” at UX: (Silent Career Killer #17) Moving from reliable “doer” to a visible strategic partner.
How to influence how people see you: Practical steps to audit and rewrite your professional perception within the org.