From Good to Great in Product Managment
Infusing product manager superpowers into your work
What’s the difference between a regular and an exceptional product manager?
There are 7 superpower skills that exceptional product managers use daily. Outstanding product managers who use these skills contribute more to their organization’s success.
This article is in 2 parts:
The superpower skills for exceptional product managers
How to include superpower skills in your daily work thoughtfully
Part 1: Superpowers for Product Managers
Understanding the perspectives of customers, stakeholders, and product team members is key to success in product management. Empathy, or the ability to walk in someone else's shoes, is key to building rapport. Picking up on the feelings of others reduces friction in getting things done.
Empathetic product managers make decisions that best serve the team ahead of their needs.
Almost every product management task depends on effective written and verbal communication. Product managers must communicate ideas, gather feedback, and align the product team.
Strong communicators inspire teamwork on the product.
Product management can be a challenging and high-pressure roller coaster of a job. Product managers need to stay motivated and optimistic with tight deadlines, changing priorities, and setbacks.
With resilience and persistence, product managers face adversity and bounce back.
Discernment is the ability to understand, perceive, and judge things clearly, especially things that are not obvious or straightforward. Using your product manager's perception, you can wisely judge between two things. This feeds into your strong communication skills.
Product managers with discernment make wise choices.
Being able to make strategic decisions is a baseline expectation of product managers. Product managers with this superpower make decisions between low-value and high-value for optimum resource usage.
Product managers that prioritize by value create business value.
You've made priority calls. It's time to let the product team shine. Your stakeholders want status or the next big thing. Your superpower is being patient while the long-term vision evolves.
Product management is about maintaining a long-term vision in the face of today's urgencies.
Patience allows product managers to navigate complexity and manage expectations.
Blending your skills enables you to think outside of the box and collaborate effectively.
Whether you have been a product manager for a year or 10+ years, combining your skills helps you collaborate well, adapt to change, and find innovative solutions.
Conclusion - Superpowers Elevate Product Managers
Product management is not only doing the mechanics of requirements, prioritization, and understanding customers. Product management is a thinking job. Superpowers of product managers is a way to think about being a better product manager.
Part 2: Using The Superpowers on the Job
Here are some ways to use superpowers in your daily product work:
Empathy - Look at product management conflicts from many perspectives and less from your perspective
The perspective of your stakeholders
Communication skills - Try many communication channels and be sure every audience understands your message
Resilience - Change up impossible situations instead of abandoning them
Resilience in meeting objections
Discernment - Don’t let decisions pile up
Thriving in a flat organization
Prioritize by value - Pause to evaluate the value of your actions before spending time on low-value efforts
Patience - Keep the long-term outcome in mind
Patience in developing your skills
Last week’s backstory for paid subscribers was about responding to stakeholder questions. Surviving a Stakeholder Test
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Good refresher thanks!
I’m very optimistic when I’m excited about a project. That impacts my discerning trait. Do you have any recommendation to balance both traits?
I think I need to create a new habit with self-awareness to solve this trigger. But I wonder if it happens to you and you have some trick you can tell me or saw working in your team.