How to Speak to Business Leaders

Course Overview
Hi everyone, my name is Jason Alba, welcome to my course, How to Speak to Business Leaders. I started my technical career programming on internet while still in college. And later on, went on to become an IT Manager, and then General Manager of a Software firm. In 2006, I was laid off and chose to start a company to help job seekers organize and manage their job search. My website, jibberjobber. com also helps people keep track of and nurture networking relationships. I'm passionate about professional development, and to have over two dozen professional development courses in the Pluralsight library. In this course, I talk about how you can get better at communicating with business leaders, specifically we talk about words and phrases that you will likely come across as you are involved in meetings that are not technical, but business-focused. We'll talk about the value you bring to the table as a technologist talking with and advising business leaders. Too often I've seen technologists who indeed have something to add to business decisions marginalize themselves and not contribute at a leadership level because they haven't bought into the value they have. The end result to these tactics is that you will be more comfortable in a business conversation, you will understand what people are talking about, and you will be able to contribute more effectively. After watching this course, continue your learning by diving in to other professional development courses like How to Get Your Next Promotion, Working and Communicating with Different Personalities and Prioritizing Tasks and Managing Time for Greater Productivity. I hope you'll join me on this journey of improving skills and your career with the How to Speak to Business Leaders course at Pluralsight.

Understanding Business Language and Your Influential Power
Welcome to the Pluralsight course, How to Speak to Business Leaders. I created this course to help you have better conversations with managers and leaders in your business. This course should also help you have richer conversations with your customers. The goal of this course is to help you feel more comfortable and influential in conversations that can have a real impact on your business, projects, and your career. In this course, we'll talk about how leaders think and where your opportunity to influence lies. We'll then talk about specific words and phrases that are commonly used in business, and we'll spend some time on words and phrases that you might want to avoid. Let's get started.

Using and Understanding Core Financial Words and Phrases
In this, and the next few modules, we'll begin to talk about specific words and phrases that would be used at the leadership level. We'll begin with a number of financial words and phrases. Let's get started.

Using and Understanding Core Marketing Words and Phrases
John is now ready to dig deeper into marketing vocabulary. He's identified a leader in marketing, and has scheduled time to ask how certain marketing words and phrases are used in his company and industry. Let's see what he has learned.

Using and Understanding Core Human Resources Words and Phrases
John is really on a roll. He is getting a better understanding of how business leaders communicate, which helps him know how they think and what their priorities are. His next step is to learn more about human resources, or HR. He has identified an HR leader and has a meeting scheduled to get clarification on some HR vocabulary. In this module, we'll go over the words and phrases that John learns about.

Using and Understanding Core Executive Words and Phrases
Continuing our scenario, as John builds his business and leadership vocabulary, he finds an opportunity to meet with an executive and go over a list of a few words he's written down during the last few meetings. The executive spends some time with John and helps him understand what the words and phrases mean within the context of the conversation. Remember, if these words and phrases don't make sense for your industry or your company, talk to someone in your industry and company and get clarification. Here are the words that John went over with this executive.

Recognizing Counterproductive Jargon and Other Things to Avoid
We've talked about dozens and dozens of words and phrases that we could and should use with executives and other leaders in an organization. In this module, we'll talk about words and phrases that we should consider avoiding.