Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Context-switching

I've mentioned the book Product Management in Practice before and just want to mention a lesson from the book that I've gotten first hand experience with over the past week.

Simply put: interacting with customers/users is a very different from interacting with stakeholders.

With customers, the goal is to learn a much as possible from them and their world, their reality. Whereas with stakeholders, the goal is to bring them along so that you can co-create a vision that inspires everyone involved. For the first interaction, you need humility, good open-ended questions, and a desire to explore divergent ideas. For the second, you need to exude confidence, skillfully guide the conversation, and secure agreement on concrete next steps.

I've had a tough time switching between the two - a crucial aspect of my current role, but the first step to solving a problem is identifying it, so I'm on my way!

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