We’ve all been there — whether you’re a Product Manager or not, you’ve sat in a meeting that’s going far longer than it should, horribly off-agenda, listening to people bicker about some minor point that’s preventing anyone from moving forward and actually making an actionable decision. Usually what happens is the loudest person in the room […]
Leading Through Influence — Managing Up
When we say that Product Managers “lead through influence,” most people think of building rapport with the execution teams to ensure that you have the personal and professional leverage required to get them to do something without challenging things for their own reasons. But that’s really only a small piece of the overall leadership puzzle, and […]
Becoming a HiPPO Hunter
This is the second in an ongoing series of blog posts originally published on the UserVoice Product Management blog. There’s no Product Manager alive who hasn’t spent time dreading a HiPPO attack; the sudden derailing of well-laid plans by a management or executive-level stakeholder who insisted that their direction was the right one simply because it was […]
Leading Through Influence the Clever PM Way — Part 1: Social Capital
It’s often stated that Product Managers “lead through influence” rather than through position. And people smile and nod, and occasionally clap their hands in agreement. But how many people really think about what this means, and how to achieve it?