Why Transparency is my Product Super Power.
I learnt a pretty hard lesson early on in my Product Management career and I learnt it publicly. Do not try to blag it, don’t try to fake it and do not try to fool those around you… you’ll get caught out and you’ll look stupid for it and when this happens you’re on your own…
It only took this happening once for me to decide to adapt my approach and to change my style.
I initially focussed on myself, trying to make sure I knew everything that I was likely to ever get asked, all the data points, all the technical implementations and decisions, everything. I was overwhelmed, I simply didn’t have the head space to keep all the plates spinning and to keep it all fresh and live.
So I acknowledged this, I focussed on building out the relationships I needed around me to make sure that what I didn’t know I had quick access to. Now when asked my response was ‘I don’t know, but I can find out’…
The more of these relationships I built and the more interconnected they become the more I realised that doing Product Management out in the open is exciting, engaging and collaborative.
For whatever reason I’d managed to turn ‘driving prioritisation’ into ‘must make all the decisions on my own’ and felt that doing anything else would be seen as a failure on my part.
Moving past this to a model where I was able to have honest conversations with my peers allowed us to make tough decisions collectively, to identify risks and to harness multiple disciplines into a focussed team.
There are so many benefits of this model:
Pivoting/changing direction — I’ve had to do this a few times and with strong engaged relationships this was much easier. Discussing as a collective in an open and honest forum allowed us to be clear on the reason for us wanting to change, acknowledging the impacts and then getting to agreement on the approach to be taken. I’ve found this allowed us to change direction a lot faster, with much less contention and therefore be more effective in doing so.
Partnership engagement — Open and honest conversations breed strong relationships. Being able to talk the benefits of problems and solutions without it being personal is hugely valuable. Because everyone feels valued we benefit from insight and ideas that may otherwise never have been offered, something I worry may be missed when Product happens behind closed doors.
Ownership — When the monkey poo really hits the fan it’s reassuring to know that you have a strong group of people alongside you. This isn’t to say that I don’t still feel the brunt of the issue, as I should — that’s my role and remit, but it does mean I have people with me who can help me fix it quickly, who I can work with to identify what went wrong and who are likely to help take the learnings to make something better.
It was no surprise to me then when recently I completed a personal profile and discovered that my leadership styles are very strongly Servant and Charismatic. Both styles complement each other, with a focus on enabling, facilitating and relationships. Whilst there was a part of me that felt Product Managers should excel at innovation or entrepreneurship on reflection I realised just how much my particular style facilitates my approach to Product and how much value I’ve gotten out of it.
My Product super power is transparency, what’s yours?
