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How to manage surprises from above

Your roadmap never gets disrupted ever, right? ...Right?

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May 11, 2023

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4 min read

Since I started this newsletter, I’ve mostly focused on communicating with your direct reports and peers. For the next 2-3 newsletters, I’ll be discussing how to communicate up to senior leadership. I feel like this is an area that is often overlooked and under-practiced.

Let’s start with a hypothetical situation (that surely has never ever ever happened at your company):

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You’re midway through a quarter and things are going great. You’re working well with your PM counterpart, your engineers are crushing their bi-weekly sprint tickets, and your customers are super happy.

Then comes the wrinkle. (There’s always a wrinkle, right?)

You have a new directive coming down from senior leadership that is going to require your team to completely shift priorities for the remainder of the quarter. Some originally planned items aren’t going to get done, or perhaps will stop mid-work stream. And you, my friend, are the one who will be communicating this to your team. You know they’re not going to like it. Hell, you don’t like it either.

What do you do?

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