Product managers who execute directives without questioning the 'why' are like Star Wars stormtroopers. They look loyal for a while, but when the plan fails, they take the fall. This passive approach leads to building the wrong thing and ultimately damages your credibility and career.
Directly asking a senior leader 'why' can feel confrontational. Instead, create psychological safety for them. Start by mirroring their excitement and aligning with the overarching business goal. This frames your questions as collaborative inquiry rather than a challenge to their authority.
When faced with a daunting, uncertain task, it's common to create the illusion of progress through activity. This often involves leaning on personal strengths, like designing beautiful slides or filling business cases with meaningless data, rather than confronting the core ambiguity.
Don't just ask executives what they want to achieve, as this puts them on the spot. Instead, proactively formulate a hypothesis about their goals and challenges. Presenting this gives them a concrete starting point to react to, confirm, or correct, leading to much faster alignment.
Senior leaders often suggest specific solutions not because they're attached to the idea, but because they see an urgent business problem going unsolved. This is a cry for help. Focus on their desired business outcome, and you can nudge their idea towards a better solution that achieves it.
Misunderstanding is a primary source of wasted effort. To combat this, use a 'playback' technique. After a discussion, ask the stakeholder 'What did you just hear?' or repeat your understanding back to them in your own words. This simple act ensures true alignment and builds confidence.
If you wait until you are 100% certain about a business decision, like entering a new market, the opportunity will have already passed. Effective product leaders make key decisions when they have around 60% certainty—enough to lean in a direction but not so much that they're too late.
The 'Monkey on a Podium' metaphor illustrates the folly of solving easy problems first. If your project's success hinges on a monkey reciting Shakespeare, don't build a perfect granite podium. First, confirm the monkey can talk. Identify and de-risk your biggest assumption immediately.
A strong product strategy requires clarity on two fronts: the business outcome (e.g., grow revenue) and the customer value that will drive it (e.g., save time). If leadership only provides the business goal, the product manager's primary job is to discover the corresponding customer value to connect the two.