Mike was wondering about "what's the human qualities for good product manager" and after spending hours on variety of different product lines he came up with a list of top-5 for product manager.
Here they are:
1. Ability to listen and hear the team.
This is sounds a bit naive at first to lot of people, who will immediately say something like: I can listen, I'm a good listener. No, that's not what I mean, and see you already missed that part if you thought so. Usually professionals are experiencing two type of challenges:
a. ability to listen and hear,
Sometimes it's a bit hard to listen opinion of junior software engineer, who can be fresh grad from college, and be passionate about making the world better. Sure, your opinion as experienced product manager is more deep with a more comprehensive understanding of possible obstacles, but junior PRM has this unique ability to think out of the box for the first 2 years after joining to new company/team. Unfortunately, this quality is something we lose with a years of working in company, like the ability of new born kids to swim.
b. ability to digest/process the information
Often, when PRM hear the feedback from all those people, who are contributing for the prosperity of the business, can lose the track of ideas with a challenge to vet them from not very useful suggestions afterwards. What is why it's important for PRM to make a notes (as much as s/he can) in order to add them to roadmap. This is a bit unique quality, which is coming by default for some of us after we born. for rest of us, it's something we should gain in school or college.
2. Enthusiasm and ability to inspire people
Mike can talk about this for hours, because he knows that it's vital for leaders (managers) who can be full of energy to infect (inspire) people with own enthusiasm. and he is not separating these two as 2 independent qualities, because, you can be Enthusiastic to get stuff done, but with absolutely terrible ability to inspire people, even if you right for 100% and can really bring a value to product. In that case, your enthusiasm might be considered (this is actually sad :) as micromanagement. Or totally opposite situation, when you have born quality to inspire people (maybe it's your Quan), but you just don't have enough enthusiasm to inspire people (maybe you busy, maybe you tired, maybe you married :) Just kidding #NoIntent2offendMarriedPeople)
3. Good proposition of politeness and ethic
Mike intentionally made a joke on #2 to make a point that PRM should be polite enough to clearly see the line s/he should never cross. And it's not about business matter, it's about general attitude of PRM to know "how to win friends" And even though some people will say He is not my friend, he is my colleague) you should still treat them as kind as you would treat your friend.
4. Persistence, can-do/will-do/let's-do
This is another important one to keep on mind, because persistence lead to better results and that attitude can-do/will-do/let's-do helps you to make it happen with your team, because remember, Team is delivering the product, not really you. But as a PRM you should be persistent and inspirational enough to them to let you lead. And the best motivator for that is to start replacing your vocabulary from "I to We" and even from "Can-do to Let's do" (Example: Let's go Giants!)
5. Good speaker and ability to delegate things to people.
This is a big deal, as for PRM is absolutely important how to talk to people, who are above you in corporate chain and peoples are reporting to you. I think you can recall some guys from your childhood, who were dealing fine with everyone, with bullies and with other kids. This ability to negotiate, deal, find a common language and etc. is another quality you can have.
Great news for those, who were not great communicators at childhood, you can still learn it, by taking toastmasters classes, public speaking etc. Because all you need, is to care less about possibility to be wrong and be criticized (all we wrong, all of us done mistakes)
Disclaimer: Your opinion might be slightly different from Mikes, so please take it into account when you read it:)
Here they are:
1. Ability to listen and hear the team.
This is sounds a bit naive at first to lot of people, who will immediately say something like: I can listen, I'm a good listener. No, that's not what I mean, and see you already missed that part if you thought so. Usually professionals are experiencing two type of challenges:
a. ability to listen and hear,
Sometimes it's a bit hard to listen opinion of junior software engineer, who can be fresh grad from college, and be passionate about making the world better. Sure, your opinion as experienced product manager is more deep with a more comprehensive understanding of possible obstacles, but junior PRM has this unique ability to think out of the box for the first 2 years after joining to new company/team. Unfortunately, this quality is something we lose with a years of working in company, like the ability of new born kids to swim.
b. ability to digest/process the information
Often, when PRM hear the feedback from all those people, who are contributing for the prosperity of the business, can lose the track of ideas with a challenge to vet them from not very useful suggestions afterwards. What is why it's important for PRM to make a notes (as much as s/he can) in order to add them to roadmap. This is a bit unique quality, which is coming by default for some of us after we born. for rest of us, it's something we should gain in school or college.
2. Enthusiasm and ability to inspire people
Mike can talk about this for hours, because he knows that it's vital for leaders (
3. Good proposition of politeness and ethic
Mike intentionally made a joke on #2 to make a point that PRM should be polite enough to clearly see the line s/he should never cross. And it's not about business matter, it's about general attitude of PRM to know "how to win friends" And even though some people will say He is not my friend, he is my colleague) you should still treat them as kind as you would treat your friend.
4. Persistence, can-do/will-do/let's-do
This is another important one to keep on mind, because persistence lead to better results and that attitude can-do/will-do/let's-do helps you to make it happen with your team, because remember, Team is delivering the product, not really you. But as a PRM you should be persistent and inspirational enough to them to let you lead. And the best motivator for that is to start replacing your vocabulary from "I to We" and even from "Can-do to Let's do" (Example: Let's go Giants!)
5. Good speaker and ability to delegate things to people.
This is a big deal, as for PRM is absolutely important how to talk to people, who are above you in corporate chain and peoples are reporting to you. I think you can recall some guys from your childhood, who were dealing fine with everyone, with bullies and with other kids. This ability to negotiate, deal, find a common language and etc. is another quality you can have.
Great news for those, who were not great communicators at childhood, you can still learn it, by taking toastmasters classes, public speaking etc. Because all you need, is to care less about possibility to be wrong and be criticized (all we wrong, all of us done mistakes)
Disclaimer: Your opinion might be slightly different from Mikes, so please take it into account when you read it:)
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