4 min read

Internal Communication Series #1: Internal Communication Is the Company Operating System

Internal communication is the infrastructure that moves context, decisions, risks, priorities, learning, and feedback through a company. Its quality is measured not by polished announcements, but by whether the right signal enables timely action and returns reality to leadership.
3 min read

Managing Up Series #10: Making Your Work Legible to Leadership

Strong work remains undervalued when leadership cannot connect it to outcomes, priorities, and measurable impact. Translating invisible effort into consistent, decision-useful updates is not self-promotion; it is how organizations recognize, prioritize, and resource what matters.
3 min read

Managing Up Series #9: How ICs Should Communicate With Executives

Effective executive communication translates technical work into business consequences, tradeoffs, and a clear recommendation. Calibrated confidence matters because leaders are assessing not only the proposal, but whether the operator understands risk, uncertainty, and the decision at hand.
2 min read

Managing Up Series #8: When to Escalate and When to Handle It Yourself

Good escalation is a judgment call, not a matter of frequency. Reversible, contained decisions within your authority should stay with you; irreversible, urgent, broad-impact, or authority-bound choices should move upward with a recommendation.
2 min read

Managing Up Series #7: Reading Your Manager's Real Priorities

Managers’ real priorities emerge through recurring questions, funded work, review metrics, and moments of urgency—not official statements alone. Learning to read those pressures helps operators connect excellent local work to the outcomes their manager is actually judged on.
2 min read

Managing Up Series #6: How to Bring Problems Without Becoming the Problem

Problems become useful upward when they arrive as structured decisions rather than unbounded anxiety. Name what changed, what is at stake, what is known, how you are containing it, and exactly what help or awareness you need.
2 min read

Managing Up Series #5: Disagreeing Upward Without Creating Friction

Disagreement upward signals judgment only when it improves the decision rather than personalizes the conflict. Private, evidence-led candor, explicit uncertainty, and concrete downside let operators advocate strongly, update honestly, and preserve trust after the call is made.
1 min read

Managing Up Series #4: Stop Sending Activity. Start Sending Signal.

A useful update converts activity into consequence: what changed, what it affects, when the risk becomes real, and whether action is required. That translation gives managers the state of the work without making them interrogate the operator.

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