3 Ways to Inspire Your Coworkers to Think Like Product Managers
Where’s the lie
Product Managers are known for being involved in nearly every facet of a company. From interviewing customers, to enabling sales people, to supporting CSMs, to collaborating with marketing, to shaping projects with engineering, and more, Product Managers simply cannot be everywhere at once.
This may be shocking to hear, but Products must be discussed, supported, and built without a Product Manager around 24/7. So how do you ensure that these discussions are in line with company vision and strategy? That decisions are being made with customer needs and future roadmap considerations in mind? And how can you make sure that every aspect of the product being built will satisfy customers and prospects?
Through mind control.
Just kidding. Product Managers are type-A, OCD, control freaks, but mind control would be a bridge too far.
I’m talking about inspiring your coworkers to think like Product Managers!
While not everyone is destined to be a Product Manager, everyone can benefit in their own jobs by thinking like one! In order to inspire your coworkers to think like Product Managers, you can follow these 3 steps:
Explain decisions out loud
Provide context, always
Set them free
Explain decisions out loud
I swear this isn’t just an excuse to hear the sound of your own voice. Instead, explaining your decisions out loud can help instill your patterns of thinking into others around you.
Every department has different interests and desires. Therefore, they all process problems in different ways in order to achieve the best possible solution for their needs. This is no different for Product, who not only has their own interests but also has to absorb and consider the needs of every department, their stakeholders, the customer, and the market.
Exposing other departments to the thought process that goes behind every product decision is key in getting your coworkers to begin thinking like a Product Manager because they become attuned to the needs of other departments, customers, and markets that they haven’t had to consider before.
Explaining how you come up with new questions, why you are critical of certain solutions, or how you land on a product decision can help the people around you understand how you come to conclusions. Doing this helps influence your coworkers to think about their own problems in a new, product-oriented way, helping them achieve more well-rounded solutions themselves.
But it is not just the thought processes that help your colleagues understand how to think like Product Managers. Explaining and achieving solutions to problems cannot happen without the ability to…
Provide Context…Always
Providing context for your coworkers works in tandem with explaining how you make decisions. If you provide enough background information for your colleagues, whether it be market research, customer interviews, or other departmental needs, it gives them enough context so they can make better-informed decisions about the product on their own.
An engineer who builds a solution based on requirements PLUS a ton of context about where the market is headed and what the customer use cases are will build a far more valuable product than an engineer only working off of requirements. If you do not provide enough information around how the product will be used, how it will be sold, and how it will evolve, you run the risk of other departments interpreting the product in different ways which could negatively impact your sales performance, retention numbers, and general health/success of the product.
Not providing enough context can also lead engineers to feel like a feature factory, sales to feel ill-prepared to give demos, customer success to feel un-empowered to help their customers, and more.
If you expose the needs of the customer, the market, and stakeholders all of the time, your coworkers will be able to work with the full picture in mind instead of in a vacuum.
Set Them Free
“If you love them, let them go?” More like “If you love them, let them grow,” am I right???
After providing tons of context and explaining decisions out loud to your coworkers, you must then give them the space they need to make well-informed, product-led decisions on their own. Remember, you cannot be in all places at once, so empowering your colleagues around you to do their own jobs with that additional context and perspective not only helps increase your influence, it also helps them better succeed at their own jobs. Besides, people would rather be empowered and autonomous instead of being invariably reliant on other people for answers and information.
Speaking of product-influenced coworkers in action…One of my engineering buddies is constantly coming up with new ways to build things in order to better achieve Product’s needs. They will start sentences like, “I think you all might find it more valuable for the customer if we build it this way.” Yes we would, my friend…yes we would.
Influencing your coworkers to think like Product Managers wouldn’t happen if you micro-manage projects while keeping vital information all to yourself. You have to inform, show your work, and then let them do their jobs.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, your coworkers in other departments have completely different strengths than Product Managers. They are armed with tons of information and experience that is related to their fields. All of which, when paired with Product-influenced thinking, is necessary in helping come up with solutions and ideas that Product Managers would never be able to achieve on their own. Every department’s skillset and contribution to the product is vital for the company’s success. Product’s influence is the cherry on top that keeps everyone in alignment in order to make the best possible product for your customers, your stakeholders, and the market.
