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The politics of product

“Not everyone in a corporation (or even in a startup) is motivated by delivering great products or delighting customers. In fact, most aren’t. Most people are motivated by self-advancement to varying degrees. At the extreme end is the Political Animal.” Paul Jackson describes the political animal and suggests some lessons for working with them. Some of those lessons include acknowledging that politics exist and you’re part of it, that it’s not personal, being right isn’t important, and being smart is irrelevant. (via @pivotservices)

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Product management is inherently political

As a product manager needing to make decisions about what does and does not get done, you are inherently going to run into organizational politics. Rich Mironov suggests that instead of ignoring the political nature of decision making in organizations, you should lean into it by building “political support for the decision process and your final choices.” (via @RichMironov)

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Building Empathy in a Product Team

“Assumptions are the kryptonite of product teams”, says Sinead Cochrane. Conversely, the product team’s superpower might then be empathy. But experiencing empathy together as a group is a challenge. To overcome this, she suggests that the entire product team participates in all user research.

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10 Leadership Qualities of Successful Product Managers

Similarly, Roman Pichler lists the traits he thinks are important for a great product leader. What’s interesting about his perspective is that these traits are often diametrically opposed, e.g., collaborative and decision making, strategic and tactical, data-informed and intuitive. This underscores that to be a great product leader, you must be able to test your natural instincts and put yourself in uncomfortable situations.

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Product Leadership Rules to Live By From My Experience at Pandora

When joining Pandora, John Krawczyk was tasked with building and managing a large team dedicated to their advertising products. From this experience he defined six tactics for building this team, and by extension, building great products. These tactics should push you to organize groups around functional pillars and realize that your PMs are your product.

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