Stop Tech-Splaining & Jump Up a Level

How To Avoid this Common Mistake Most Tech Leaders Make

👋 Hello Technocrats!

I hope your 2025 is off to a rousing start!

A lot of leaders don’t realize how much they “tech-splain” 🧠 to stakeholders who either don’t understand or don’t care about deep technical topics.

But Top 1% leaders know this is a big mistake, so today I’ll help you avoid it & jump up a level in your exec communications.

Cheers & let’s dive in! 🦈

Bobby

As a CTO or technology leader you’re always going to be the most technically gifted person in the c-suite, but that’s actually a power you only want to use rarely.

99% of stakeholders around you such as Board members, CEOs and other execs don’t actually want to know a lot of technical details, but too many tech leaders talk about the tech anyway during presentations, status updates, reports, etc.

I call this “tech-splaining.”

In fact, I’ve noticed tech-splaining is so prevalent amongst technology leaders that it often creates a dynamic where stakeholders simply start ignoring tech execs because their points are wrapped up in too much technical jargon.

It’s strange but its like tech leaders almost can’t help themselves from talking about either the architecture, or cloud, or data science, or some other really deeply technical topic.

At some level I do get it because everyone wants to prove their worth, but I’m always wanting to yell “READ THE ROOM!”

By all means, talk tech with your team, but honestly how is the head of HR or Marketing going to benefit from learning more about AWS availability zones, for example?

Most stakeholders just don’t care!

Why Tech-Splaining is a Big Mistake for Your Career

Look, the bottom line is that we are all judged at work by the quality of our communications — especially executives.

Do something great technically, but mangle the presentation? It’s almost like you didn’t do it.

Unfortunately, that is the reality of life and so to succeed we must be great communicators.

Tech-splaining gets in the way of good communications as a tech leader — BIG TIME.

Here are the 10 reasons why it really, really hampers your career as a tech leader (and most leaders don’t even realize its happening):

1. Tech-splaining instantly creates a barrier between you and other execs

2. Tech-splaining can make you appear arrogant

3. Tech-splaining often simply confuses people resulting in their walls going up

4. Tech-splaining may distract from talking about the business side

5. Tech-splaining can get tech leaders so passionate that they lose their objectivity (I’ve seen this happen a lot)

6. Tech-splaining often makes you look like you lack business acumen even if you don’t

7. Tech-splaining will take the company down really random tech paths of thought that it doesn’t need to go (I’ve seen this happen a lot too)

8. Tech-splaining can make non-tech CEOs feel like you wasted their and the ELTs time

9. Tech-splaining frequently makes leadership think they are solving the problem when actually the business issue still remains

10. Tech-splaining often kills the flow of big Board meetings or ELT calls

You see how bad it looks when you list everything out in this way?

Yeah, tech-splaining is that bad!

But why do otherwise smart technology leaders make this mistake?

Why Tech Leaders Make This Mistake

Like I said, a lot of tech leaders just can’t help themselves & LOVE talking deep tech, but it’s also more than that.

The core reason IMO is that technology leaders don’t practice effective communications enough & so they think tech-splaining is normal when it’s actually not.

Technology leaders also want to prove their worth just like anyone else and tech-splaining helps them do that in their opinion (it doesn’t really).

Talking deep tech also shows a level of credibility which is definitely true, but only to an extent. Most of the c-suite appreciates your tech knowledge but they want to know the business impact more than anything technical.

Let’s be real: another reason is that some tech leaders use tech-splaining as a way to show off. I’ve done it myself earlier in my career. But the more experience you get the more you realize this isn’t needed.

Lastly, tech-splaining is a security blanket for tech leaders and in their mind shows how hard they are working. I get this reason. I really do.

On this last one maybe there is a TINY bit of merit to tech-splaining.

What Do Elite CTOs Do Instead

The difference between average tech leaders “tech-splaining” and what most elite CTOs do is night and day.

Next-level and “elite” CTOs are able to hit a sweet-spot of communication which is neither too deeply technical, nor too surface level.

And this is difficult for sure.

In my estimation only about 10% to 20% of technology leaders can achieve this ideal balance (sweet-spot) on a consistent basis.

The other 80% to 90% of CTOs lean much too far on the technical side.

The Elite CTO Approach to Tech-Splaining

Let me spill the tea on this:

1️⃣ No matter how much their boss or other stakeholders ask them to explain the technical details they don’t do it (in the way you think). They know a CTO technical explanation is FAR different than a CEO technical explanation.

2️⃣ They ALWAYS have a business explanation ready for technical issues. How is that possible? Here’s an example: instead of saying “our MX records were incorrectly updated with wrong IPs,” instead they say, “an engineer accidentally misconfigured our email system.” This is what you need to perfect.

3️⃣ They are really good at sharing technical details in written form before the meeting. This avoids having to tech-splain IN THE MEETING & boring everyone. They can always just say, “read the doc I sent for more details.”

4️⃣ They invest significantly in learning how to communicate well so that they rarely have to dive into the technical details in the first place. Think about it: if you’re a master communicator 90% of what your audience needs to know will be taken care of by you in the first pass BEFORE you have to hit the tech piece.

5️⃣ Elite CTOs understand that the same explanation won’t work for engineers, product managers, and executives. They use analogies, metaphors, or examples relevant to each group, ensuring everyone feels informed without being overwhelmed by jargon.

How to Stop Your Tech-Splaining

OK, this article is starting to run a little long so I’m going to rattle these off really quickly.

✅ Start with writing down your tech explanations before meetings. By writing things down you’ll start a magical process where you learn to articulate a tech topic with much better clarity. In other words WRITING will (oddly) help you find your VERBAL tech sweet-spot! This is key.

✅ Next, level up on your business competency triggers. You must learn to speak the language of business MORE than the language of tech for the c-suite! It truly is that simple. The best way to do this is to spend MUCH more time with business people than you’re doing right now.

✅ Practice explaining the tech to your engineering team first. Then refine what you said for the c-suite update.

✅ Read less about tech (HackerNews) & more about business (Wall Street Journal). This will help with developing the business language you’re missing right now.

✅ Practice pivoting away from the deep tech explanation in meetings. This is definitely the most difficult. The way I did it was to give myself some stock phrases. Here is an example of what I might say:

“We’ll talk about the tech in a minute, but first I’ll explain the high-level situation.” Guess what? Once you’re done painting the high-level / strategic picture (if it’s really good) nobody cares enough to come back around and ask about the tech! 😃 Works like magic.

✅ Finally, and here’s the key to this…you need some feedback. Find a trusted friend in the workplace and ask them if you’re boring people with your tech-splaining! They will give you a good data point in terms of how much course correcting you have to do.

Final Thoughts

There are no elite level CTOs who tech-splain!

Or at least there are very, very few of them. And if they do it they have something else going for them like they are AI geniuses, etc.

You should certainly stop tech-splaining if you want to rise to the next level.

But the truth is we’ve all been there. If you started like a sys admin or developer like I did you’ve fallen into the tech-splaining trap at one point or another.

There’s no shame in that.

In fact, a lot of time it is our bosses who inadvertently encourage us to do it because they want to know details.

The key realization is that a CEO doesn’t think about technical details the same way we do. So be careful about taking “the bait.”

Breaking out of the habit of “tech-splaining” is for sure difficult if you’ve been doing it for many years, but it’s quite important to communicating differently as a tech exec & making a jump to the next level.

If you can stop doing it it can truly be transformational to your leadership & career — less “tech-splaining” and more business talk helps you build bridges to stakeholders and ultimately increases your influence.

One more note:

Most CTOs aren’t the best at writing. But writing is truly where you create the magic of turning yourself into a great communicator.

Start by writing from more of a business lens in your day-to-day (decks, docs, etc). And reduce the tech jargon to increase your focus on business outcomes.

It will be challenging at first because you’re not used to it but simply start with the next deck you have to create.

Reach out for help if you need it: bobby@technocratic.io.

And in the meantime, keep the shark swimming! 🦈