I’ve always been a big fan of the concept of a “core competency” or “distinctive competency” — the one thing that you, your product, or your company does better than anyone else, and that is difficult to easily replicate. Unfortunately, I find that far too few organizations really understand, at a deep level, what this is — or worse, believe they do but when pressure tested the belief fails to live up to expectations. For some organizations, their core competency is obvious — Amazon has a clear competency in logistics, Zappos has a clear competency in customer service, Google has a clear competency in paid advertising. But for others it’s not so simple. Understanding and being able to articulate your core competencies is essential to success as a Product Manager, and as a product or a company as a whole.
Sometimes Failure is the Best Result
As a Product Manager, it’s in our bones to always do the best job possible, to deliver the best product possible, and to satisfy the most customers possible. But what if I told you that by always succeeding, we’re actually hampering ourselves? While it might feel good to hit a home run every time you step up to the plate, you’re probably not playing in the right league. It can be easy to fall into a pattern of complacency, of certainty, of feeling invincible because you never miss a swing — but the simple fact is that if you’re never wrong, you’re playing it too safe and you’re limiting yourself to only what you know that you can accomplish. It takes bravery to step outside our comfort zones, to stretch ourselves and test our boundaries, and to try new things that aren’t guaranteed to be winners. In fact, failure is essential to growth not only as a Product Manager but as a person in general — for it is only in failure that we learn from our mistakes and can adjust to ensure that the next stretch, the next test of our abilities, passes with flying colors. If you never fail, you never grow…
That Which is Urgent is Not Always Important
We’ve all been there — that sudden call from one of your Sales team with a customer “on the hook” but they only need this one more thing to close the deal. Or maybe it’s an escalated issue from your biggest customer that lands in your mailbox with gigantic ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!! Or worse yet, it’s your CEO who “stops by for a quick chat” about something that he overheard at an industry event last night. Regardless of where these things come from, they all have one thing in common — they’re urgent. They require your time now. They simply cannot be ignored.
Or can they? Or more accurately, should they be ignored? If you ask me, the answer is absolutely. Things that are “urgent” are thrust upon us by others with some expectation that we’ll drop everything and deal with them — not on our terms, but on the terms of someone else. Here’s why you should beware of the urgent and instead focus on what’s important…
When Push Comes to Shove – Picking Your Battles
In many organizations, conflict is part and parcel of the culture — some conflict can be constructive, some destructive, but most of it can just be downright annoying. And, because we often sit right in the middle of all of the random agendas, battles of ego, and emotional storms that can rage throughout the company, Product Managers often wind up dealing with the outcome of these conflicts if we’re not pulled deeply into them by one or more of our stakeholders. And while it can often be tempting to take on all comers, to defend your territory and your teams to the bitter end, the sad truth is that all too often, these conflicts simply aren’t set up in a way for us to “win” — and seeking that extra mark in our “W” column can often be counterproductive rather than helpful in the long run. All of the best Product Managers know that sometimes when there’s a fight that you’re not going to win, it’s far more important to lose gracefully than it is to die on a hill for something that ultimately didn’t really matter much.
The Clever PM’s Hierarchy of PM Needs
There’s a well-known theory in psychology known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, named after its creator Abraham Maslow. The concept behind this theory is that as human beings there are certain needs and interests that we seek to fulfill in a predictable priority — from physiological needs for food, water, and sleep up to social needs of belonging to a group, all the way to becoming independent, self-actualized creatures — the “best that we can be.” It’s a very interesting concept, and one that immediately came to mind in a recent Twitter discussion that I had with a fellow Product Manager named Gasca. Gasca proposed that the “intersection of business, development, and design” wasn’t really sufficient to describe what makes a Product Manager excel, and added a circular diagram to the discussion which immediately prompted me to think of the whole idea more in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy — just what is it that makes a good Product Manager better, and how can we structure our approach to building skills and refining talent to “level up” our co-workers and peers to make the me most self-actualized Product Managers we can? I don’t pretend to have the full answer, but here are some thoughts, using Maslow’s Hierarchy as a model…
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