Raw Materials
What does it take to be a great product manager, regardless of product type?
It all starts with the raw materials.
Great PMs can be molded, but only if we start with the right ingredients.
However, without each of these critical skills - all of which are more ingrained than teachable - it's a lost cause.
So what does it take?
EMPATHY
Are humans their center of gravity? Can they truly and authentically inhabit another human being's experience in the world, and can they connect with the emotional elements? Can they truly feel the joys, the struggles, and use that to inform their approach? This applies not just to customers, but to team members.
CURIOSITY
Are they students of the world? Are they constantly observing everything that's happening around them, and asking how it could be better? Are they just as skilled at unlearning something as learning it? Curious individuals can expound on the products they use and love, with savvy insights on why those products are powerful.
ANALYTICS
Our world is shockingly complex. There are so many layers, so many variables. They should have a knack for decomposing complex issues into their component parts, and in doing so providing simplified and understandable models of a messy reality. This is not just the key to high impact decision making, but to communicating a clear vision. They should also be able to synthesize the component parts of the problem back into a whole product solution.
COLLABORATION
Product managers are not creators, they are editors. All the answers we need exist around us, in the hearts and minds of our customers and team members. We just have to discover them, and edit them into something that makes sense to the world. To do that in a genuine, authentic way requires a healthy dose of humility. It also requires people to truly, deeply believe in the one team philosophy, that they are effectively useless without the team. Listen for "we."
GRIT
How many times can they take a punch before staying down? The only answer is "as many as it takes to get to where we need to go." These individuals are unbreakable - they won't win every battle (they lose often), but they never lose the war. They are fervent optimists, convinced of a better future, but brutal pragmatists, embracing the harsh reality of their current moment. They are not naive. They live the Stockdale Paradox. When you ask them about failure and struggle, they will have plenty of stories, and embrace each without bitterness or regret, because it was just one punch they took on the way to where they wanted to get.
EMOTIONAL MATURITY
Feelings are not easily hurt and does not expect special consideration. Is not a chronic ‘fault-finder’ and is not prone to envy or jealousy. Does not rush to blame others. Not threatened when others disagree with them. Non-judgmental.
