How can I start talking the language of the business, rather than be the technical black box?

you have to understand the business first, how it goes to market, how it prices, the margins and cost levers, and risks beyond cyber as well that could impact the business

Take the time to understand their priorities, challenges, strengthes and weaknesses.

This will involve asking a lot of questions and a lot of listening. Continue to ask questions, right up to the point of clarity.

Use the power of story telling and analogies are always a good way to convey a message as well. It removes the language barrier and draws the audience in.

But most importantly, don't just show up with solutions. Make sure you understand the problems first.

Many functions have their own language and acronyms, for example finance or supply chain, but IT is particularly bad at this. 

The key here is to keep the technical speak for the IT people and to be able to talk business, to understand the business and to discuss the benefits etc of any project or change in business terms.

The best way to start is to spend time with the business and understand it. Once you can do that you will be on the right path.

Speak to the board and senior management in a language that they understand. Don’t talk tech with them, as they don’t speak that language.

 

And the book ‘Measuring and Managing Information Risk: A FAIR Approach’ is an excellent way to do that.

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Measuring-Managing-Information-Risk-Approach/dp/0124202314/

Study an MBA. That’s what I did several years ago and it’s been the most helpful tool that have helped me understand better the business language.

Also, I learned a lot with all the cases we’d study back then, some of them are still current these days.

I took my MBA 20 years ago.