By Stacey Weber
Uncertainty is the nature of product management. After all, we are constantly predicting what the market will buy and forecasting what products and features will delight our users. That uncertainty can be hard to handle, and you’re surrounded by people who aren’t afraid to be vocal about their beliefs and opinions. It can feel risky and stressful to make uncertain decisions, especially when the team seems ready to pounce if you make the “wrong” call. That stress can escalate into analysis paralysis – sucking you into days of thought and research without a definitive conclusion.
Uncertainty is a permanent, built-in part of the job. Each of us needs strategies to help us make decisions without getting paralyzed – and when we make those calls, we need philosophies to help us withstand the feedback from people who disagree with our decision.
Your Product Management / Product Marketing job will be significantly less stressful and more fun if you figure out how to operate well in uncertainty. You’re going to have to accept that you can’t please everyone. If you are naturally a people-pleaser, this might be even more challenging for you – but the rewards will be equally great, in your career and your life. None of us can please everyone, and we are each called to make the best decisions.
When I was learning how to be a product manager, I thought of my stakeholders as citizens. Eventually that got me into trouble, though, because you simply cannot please everyone – and if you take a vote from your stakeholders, you realize that priorities differ among them.
Sales is incented with commissions, so they naturally look for the fastest way to revenue. Engineering is motivated by solving tough problems in an elegant way – which might take longer than doing it “quick and dirty”. Executives need to bring honest and positive feedback to the board. Their priorities differ intentionally, and it’s one of the primary reasons they need Product Management!
Product Management’s primary job is to understand the impacts on everyone, and then make decisions that will most favorably impact the profitability of the product – the right compromise between revenue and expense, between speed and quality, between impact on the company and impact on the market.
It’s not your job to make all of your stakeholders happy. If everyone is always happy, then your product is probably heading toward an identity crisis!
Eventually, I realized that being a good leader requires a bit of a different approach. In reality, you are not creating products through a collaborative democracy. Rather, you are the benevolent dictator!
A benevolent dictator stays in touch with their constituents and makes decisions to improve their situation – but ultimately, he owns each and every decision. The citizens under a benevolent dictator feel supported and cared for, even though they don’t get to vote.
In business, the Product Manager needs to be a benevolent dictator – considering the input of their constituents, then making decisions that benefit the profitability of their offering.
