Product managers can effect change today by using the same techniques that effective executives use.
Effective executives are great at playing politics. They’re continuously in meetings with decision makers, stakeholders and other teams to ensure that their idea is bought into and successful.
But executives don’t call it playing politics. They call it collaboration – and this is the key to getting things done when you need buy-in from people who don’t report to you.
Product managers are in a similar position. While we’re not CEOs (despite what the Internet wants you to believe), product managers are responsible for the ultimate output and typically don’t have direct line responsibility for the people doing the work. I heard someone describe being a product manager as “all the responsibility with none of the authority”.
Effective executives don’t dictate what to do. They get people on board using a combination of persuasion, collaboration and tact.
Since product managers usually don’t have the ability to hire and fire our team members, we need to rely on the same techniques that effective executives rely on to get a team of people to do the right work at the right time:
- Persuasive executives (and product managers) don’t have all the answers, but they know all the problems. When collaborating with another team, come to the table with crystal clear problems instead of answers. Engineers and designers are paid handsomely to solve problems, so unleash them on it. Not only will they use their brainpower to solve the problem, they’ll feel ownership over the deliverable (instead of pushing back against your solution out of ego). BONUS: this is a great example of getting out of your team’s way.
- Collaborative executives (and product managers) add value to other teams. Whether it’s offering to let another team borrow an engineer to get that feature deployed or creating the slide deck for an upcoming group presentation, collaborative managers add value to other teams by offering to help however they can. BONUS: It’s so common in our profession for the default answer to be no, that you may garner good-will just by offering.
- Tactful executives (and product managers) make sure nobody is surprised. Have quick, informal meetings with individual members of your team before announcing a change to the larger group. These short “pre-meetings” let you receive and react to feedback privately while showing that you care enough about their opinion to ask for it before finalizing your plan. By the time you’re ready to announce the change publicly, literally nobody is surprised. You’ve now successfully steered conversation at the announcement meeting to how it’s done, and not whether it’s a good idea. BONUS: These are great topics for conversation in 1:1’s with your team.
Thanks to fellow product manager Stephan Rubin for reading an early version of this.