My problem with most of these books is they are indirectly trying to solve the real problem. The problem that IME HN is allergic to discussing.

Power Dynamics.

The reason the CEO is nitpicking your job is because he is not a good CEO and doesn't know his place or how to do his job. Almost all these books are about an indirect way of dealing with the fact that, this person is a ID10T and you have to deal with them because they have more power than you. Yet it is literally NEVER discussed.

The books(IDK about this one) really summarizes indirect ways of how to be subservient and not accidentally antagonize your "superiors" which are frequently people just born into a better lot in life than you, without feeling like that is what you are doing.

What is the CEO's primary duties, networking?, Sales, COMMUNICATING yet its your job to read books on how to tiptoe around how to sus out what they cannot COMMUNICATE?

I'm a pretty opinionated engineer but I'll still volunteer that in a majority of "engineering" disputes, I care more about having a coordinated and consistent approach than I do about the absolute tack taken.

Maybe I've just been lucky to mostly work with decent managers, but basically I consider the tie-breaking function to be intrinsically valuable.

With this particular book, the prerequisite is that your client is trying to achieve something, yeah. I think know the type of CEOs and CTOs that you’re talking about, the ones that only want to sound smart and don’t really care about the end result. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do in this case apart from looking for a workplace where people do care about what they do.