The book Articulating Design Decisions (O'Reilly) deals specifically with this. It's always an uphill battle, and the book's overall lesson is "empathize as much as possible", but it's a great read. It has definitely helped me in dealing with more difficult management types who don't understand the design or technical side of product building.
Hey there, I wrote Articulating Design Decisions. Convincing stakeholders of your decisions is critical to the success of every project for sure... I've been there many times.
You can watch my talk from MidwestUX last year that gives some practical tips too: https://vimeo.com/110260257
The early release eBook is available now. The print version will be available in August.
