A savvy engineer, like a spy, knows how to gain the confidence of the CEO long before they put a plan of "Gee, I think you should do this" in the CEOs ear. I've spent months ingratiating myself with the political circle before someone says "Hey Ben, what do you think?" and from there, it's game on.

Read Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, or watch his Masterclass, which isn't really so much a masterclass in negotiation, although that was its intent on the surface. It's more a masterclass on empathy and understanding other peoples needs and how to leverage helping them succeed for your own benefit.

[Statement of my understanding of the situation]

"Well, from my perspective of understanding our mission statement and raison d'etre, our company's strategy for success is [describe the strategy from your perspective]. Is that accurate?"

[Await validation]

"Yes, that's pretty accurate."

[Empathize with their needs = instant connection]

"It's gotta be pretty frustrating for you to see these things that are happening down the food chain every day that are not only hindering that strategy, but actively competing against it. How do you deal with that?"

[Now just listen to them talk and ask questions and clarify to make sure they feel like you're not only understanding their pain, but understand their core basic needs.]

[Statement of your ability to help solve their problems. Why am I different than the other 200 people outside your door?]

"Well, I've been in the software game since I was 8, 37 years; and I've learned a lot of stuff over my years when it comes to high performance R&D. I've been on a bunch of successful high performance teams, including working with X, Y and Z, the team that did Y that was all over the news last year. Having been with this team a few months now, I've been observing what is going on and thinking about how the current tactics of the department are actively hindering us from completing our corporate strategy.

I would like to help align R&D with corporate objectives and not only reduce the friction that's preventing us from achieving them, but actively increase our productivity, output and responsiveness to our customer base to move us forward faster, making the product more desirable and more saleable, increasing profitability over current projections, reducing payroll by and significantly shortening our delivery cadence."

[Now you've piqued their interest, you've hit every pain point in a CEOs target list except for fund raising. Let the conversation go from here.]

The minute you start talking about increasing profits over projections, reducing friction, increasing productivity, reducing payroll costs, decreasing team churn and increasing employee satisfaction, you've basically just become a CEO's wet dream. That's everything a successful engineering team is made of... double if you've already done it before and can prove you can do it again.

So it doesn't matter how long the line up is at the CEO's door. It's no more difficult to bypass it and step up to the front of the line than it is to bypass the chain of management between you and their office.

Everyone's gotta eat. Everyone has a social life. Outside of the office, everyone is equal. How do you get the ear of a new friend or a potential girl or boyfriend. How do you catch their attention? Figure out who they are, what they do, what's important to them and what you can do to help them achieve their dreams. Make a plan. Execute. That's the secret sauce.