I often describe the job of product management as simply the ability to influence without authority. No matter what problem you are solving, you are gathering evidence to determine what you should do and why you should be doing it.
At different points along the journey, it’s a guarantee that you will run into a variety of people. Some won’t know you, some won’t care what you are doing, and some might outright want something different from what you want. This is where the game gets fun. How do you get done what needs to get done?
It’s easy to revert to something like “well the CIO wants this.” Or “ some Vice President wants that.” But, in reality that’s somewhat of a backwards way to get things done. Of course, it’s fine that these people want things. But, what if instead we only focused on the merits of why we were doing something. That the reason we are doing something, or asked to do something is so compelling that it would be foolish to not buy in. And, if something truly can’t stand on its own, we have the fortitude to question it relentlessly.
For instance, think about your childhood for a minute. What worked better? Mom and Dad telling you to clean the house or you are in trouble, or hey if you clean the house we can then have a presentable space. And once we have that we can have company over including your friends.
People are not robots. They are creative, curious, want to know why, and want to know if their effort is adding any value. It’s even better if you can find a way to quickly build a rapport with your partners. And better than that if you can have data to back up your story.
The point here would be this; the next time you catch yourself wanting to say “so-and-so person wants this” as your reason for getting someone to do something. Instead try saying “if you can help us accomplish this, you will help us solve this pain point and create this value.” My bet is you will have a lot easier time winning people over.
