Tami Reiss is CEO of Leader Within, Executive Coach at Women in Product, and author of ‘What do Product Managers Do?’ Formerly, she was CPO in Residence at Insight Partners, Guest Lecturer at Northwestern University, and Sr Product Consultant at Pivotal Labs.
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EC: What separates PMs who rise quickly from those who stall?
TR: Product Maangers who focus too much on relationships — or execution — tend to stall.
There needs to be a balance.
Strong product managers make sure their teams are meeting their goals, and are also always investing time in cultivating relationships to generate influence.
EC: What’s the #1 mistake PMs make when pitching an initiative?
TR: Product Managers tend to think that they need to create a singular great pitch deck to convince everyone about how great the initiative is when, in fact, they will gain much more buy-in by personalizing their pitch to different audiences and individuals.
This allows for the other folks to understand how they will directly benefit from the intuitive. Then there is potential for them to become advocates of the initiative themselves, and generate much more momentum.
EC: What single behavior shift can most accelerate a PM’s career?
TR: The single behavior shift that can most accelerate a PM’s career is to ask open ended questions, instead of making statements.
For example, rather than saying ‘I think this initiative will generate X,’ Product Managers should ask ‘How much X do we think this will generate?’
Or they may ask, ‘What do you think the downstream beneficial impacts might be?’
If it’s something negative, such as a red flag — rather than stating ‘This is a BIG problem and here’s why,’ a PM could ask ‘What happens if this scenario happens?’
And Product Managers should guide other people to get to the same answer.
This creates a situation where other people feel like they generated the idea, and therefore have ownership of it.
“The single behavior shift that can most accelerate a PM’s career is to ask open ended questions, instead of making statements.”
- Tami Reiss
