The art of influence: The single most important skill left that AI can’t replace | Jessica Fain

Executives live in strobe light chaos

Their calendars are packed with urgent decisions jumping from finance to legal to people problems, often without bathroom breaks or time to prep for your meeting.

They haven't thought about you since last meeting

While you've prepped for weeks, executives need 30 seconds of context at meeting start to remember why you're there and what happened previously.

Everything crossing their desk is an emergency

Executives optimize for global maximum across the entire organization, not the local problems you're focused on solving.

Treat executives like users you're researching

Product managers excel at curiosity and empathy with customers but forget these skills when talking to stakeholders above them.

Become a communication chameleon

Learn what sparks your executive's best thinking - whether it's designs, customer stories, dashboards, or experiments - and speak their language.

Ask what the board is pushing them on

Understanding their goals, measurements, and pressures allows you to connect your ideas to their success metrics.

You get paid to be the deepest person in room

Good executives want your domain expertise, not rubber stamp approval - bring customer anecdotes and data-driven insights to every conversation.

Question with curiosity, not confrontation

When you disagree, ask 'That's interesting, what led you to believe that?' rather than immediately pushing back with your perspective.

Build trust by killing things

One of the biggest trust-builders with executives is demonstrating you can deprioritize and say no to good ideas for the sake of focus.

Politics manipulates, influence increases good idea survival

True influence is about learning and strengthening ideas through stakeholder discovery, not manipulating outcomes for personal gain.

It's not my fault, but it is my problem

If leaders don't buy into your ideas, take ownership of the influence failure rather than blaming their lack of vision.

Go in to learn, not get approval

Use executive meetings as discovery sessions to strengthen your plan with their domain expertise and organizational context.