5 suggestions and an explanation (Score 1)

Advice: 1) Work for a few months in technical customer support, best by phone. Choose a place where you will receive training for this. After a few weeks, you will know how to advise people on things they have no knowledge about. (Warning: this is an enlightening experience, but not fun.) 2) Take courses. Anything related to teaching, communication, motivation, rhethorics, psychology etc. will help. 3) Practice communication in places where you get feedback. Somebody mentioned Toastmasters. Discussion groups are also a nice idea. Rhethorics courses where your performance is recorded by camera for you later to see is helpful, too. 4) Learn to listen. Let friends tell you about things that you have no knowledge about whatsoever and are not interested in. 5) Get to know how managers decide and why. Allow me to comment on your problem the way I see it: Obviously, your superiors do not possess the necessary knowledge to make a right choice. That's ok, that's what tech people are for. Just keep in mind not to present a wrong choice to your superiors as an option, because it is not. If there is really just one way to go, tell them so. I guess eventually, it boils down to taking on more responsibility. One more thing: From my experience, many communication issues between tech people and managers stem from the correctness and precision tech people have learned to exercise. An example: Your manager's computer refuses to work and you are asked for help. You're not sure what the problem is, but you are confident that the graphics adapter is the problem and a driver update will do the job. But because you have learned to be precise, you tell the manager: "It is impossible to say for certain what the problem is. Maybe the graphics adapter is not working, we can try a driver update." What your manager probably understands, however, is this: . o O { My technician doesn't know either! Now, do I trust my hard drive full of valuable corporate data to his hunch or mine? } O o . Needless to say, he will trust his own hunch. What you should have told him would have been more authoritative, maybe along the line of: "The graphics adapter is not working. We will do a driver update." No "maybe", no "try".