Leading in Product Management

As a Product Manager, you are likely to face many difficult conversations, for example, stopping work that fails to align with top priorities, giving feedback, negotiating roadmaps, and apologising when you took your eye off the ball.

Mastering difficult conversations can give you superpowers. You can get the confidence to promote new product ideas, drive organisational changes, and lead your group.

Conversations fall apart when we say, "I am right, and you are wrong." This is because we have more information about ourselves than we have about the other person. We know our intent, but we judge their intent based on their action. We also base our deduction on what suits our pre-conceived ideas.

How to overcome this limitation:

• Use the "And" stance, meaning acknowledging that both stories can be right.
• Disentangle the impact of the action from the original intent.
• Map the contribution system. Each party can acknowledge that one of their actions contributed to the case.

Feelings are at the centre of a difficult conversation. Ignoring emotions can cause resentment, anger, and broken relationships.

There are three steps to expressing feelings in difficult conversations.

• Get better at uncovering your feelings. Reframe feelings to something you experience, not who you are. You are not angry, you are experiencing anger. Question what is behind the emotion.
• Realise that you can negotiate with your feelings. Your feelings are caused by what you're thinking. 
• Describe your feelings to your colleague without venting. "I felt that my opinions were not paid attention to."