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How to Talk to the Person Who Intimidates You at Work
We’ve all been there
Jessica Powell, the former Google vice president who wrote The Big Disruption and told you how to quit your job, is here to answer your common but tricky work questions. Check back every other week for more management advice with a tech inflection.
I get really nervous whenever I have to speak to a senior executive. What can I do?
We’ve all been there.
Even the people at the very top were once at the bottom; even if they skipped a million lines and jumped ahead because their father is the CEO or they have a famous last name. No matter how confident they may seem today, everyone has had the feeling of being small in the presence of someone bigger.
All of which is to say that everyone is human and has flaws; everyone fears someone or something. Even that important exec who intimidates you.
I once worked with a bigwig in sales who was very smart, and often harsh with his feedback. Employees (myself included!) were so intimidated that they’d often get flustered and botch their interactions with him. To make matters worse, he seemed to revel in our bumbling.
But then, one day, I ended up in a discussion with that exec and a group of engineers, one of whom made a joke about the operating system Linux. I saw a flicker of unfamiliarity pass across the sales exec’s face. As much as he liked to remind people of his science background (God forbid you work in tech and have a humanities background!), it was clear to me from his face, and his silence, that he didn’t get the joke — and that he didn’t want anyone to see his ignorance.
Aha, I told myself, this is someone who is just as insecure as the rest of us. After that day, I found it much easier to talk to him. The sales exec was still as sharp as ever, still waiting to crush us all in an argument, but he had been brought down to size in my mind — and suddenly that made him normal.
When it comes to getting over your fear of a superior, the point is not to search out their weakness, but rather to remind yourself that everyone has vulnerabilities, and no one is better than you at everything. I can’t do multi-variable calculus on the fly, or recite pi to the…
