Who is the stakeholder?
I had a conversation a few days ago about stakeholder management and one thing that popped out was the ambition to cluster stakeholders in some predefined boxes: sales, marketing, executives, team and so on.
Of course, this is not the only time I saw this need for categorization and if you read articles about stakeholder management you will see the pattern.
I have two problems with this approach, first is that it artificially creates some expectations that can or not be there, you are not dealing with executives as a whole, you deal with John, Frank, Maria and so on, individual people with individual needs, maybe they are indeed all executives, that does not mean that they think the same.
The second issue with this is that the list will never be comprehensive enough. A lot of people are influencing your product, you really need to realize who and how.
Let me give you an example, I rarely saw HR as a stakeholder.
But think about it, let’s say for whatever reason you don’t have a good relationship with HR, budget always comes up in hiring and can’t be negotiated, maybe sometimes the hiring process gets delayed, some pieces of training gets forgotten, and not necessarily because those people want to make things difficult for you but just because they are prioritizing their actions based on some biases, they don’t like you, you are in the queue somewhere.
Same thing with Finance, you want maybe to navigate the P&L a bit more efficiently, and maybe you want some expenses to be CAPEX or OPEX even if the rules are shady.
Those are just examples, I bet that I can find the same reasoning for every department or team in the company.
Both of the above examples greatly influence your product, maybe sometimes you want to break some rules and speed things up. If you play the Product Management game for a while, you know that things need to happen and some delays in a random process are absolutely no excuse.
Where am I getting at
That everybody whom you interact with and can directly or indirectly influence your product must be dealt with. You can’t cherry picking, these are my stakeholders, and I must take care of them, and these are not so they don’t matter.
To be even more complex, even in one category of stakeholders, you can’t have a uniform approach. Everybody is different, they have different needs, agendas, and expectations. You will need to learn them one by one. Believing that you can treat a cluster of stakeholders, in the same way, it’s wishful thinking.
So, what to do?
Because people are different and you need to learn how to deal with individuals, the best you can do is to have a uniform approach.
Below are just a few of the things that, at least until now, helped me.
Don’t be an asshole.
Never forget that, as a result of your work, you need collaboration and cooperation across teams and company lines. Be honest, and open, and respect other people’s opinions. Don’t be an asshole – be an effective Product Manager.
That of course does not mean not fighting for your team or product. It’s a difference.
You can’t make everybody happy – you are not selling ice cream (quoting a meme, I actually don’t really know if it is a famous quote or not)
Sometimes conflicts will arise, and you will need to be able to deal with them. In most of the trade-offs that you will do some people will win and some will lose but you need to make the best decision for the sake of the product and long-term vision. A decision is nevertheless better than no decision.
Try to be transparent and clearly communicate the reasoning.
Choose your battles wisely.
I saw this so many times with people trying to demonstrate their point of view without any clear scope in mind. If you really want to enter a conflict, do it for a good reason, only make it if you can win it and the product or the team will benefit.
I know it is a thin line and you will need to judge it case by case.
Understand your impact on others.
No matter what your day-to-day tasks look like, it’s important to be mindful of your impact on others. Before making any decisions or giving any feedback, consider how it will affect those around you. This isn’t just an ethical consideration – understanding your effect on other people’s emotions and motivations can help you make informed decisions and work effectively as part of a team.
Seek to understand perspectives, and be humble.
In our day-to-day lives, it is all too easy to assume that our beliefs and opinions are the only ones that matter. Actively seeking to understand the perspectives of others will help you understand better situations and solutions. Being willing to question your own opinions and consider alternative viewpoints takes humility but it is worth it.
Shout for help when you need it, and do not offer unwanted help.
It’s really hard to understand how so many people, in difficult situations, aren’t shouting for help. In my perspective at least, this is an act of strength, not weakness. Not only that it helps you to face the situation but in general people love to help, it makes them feel useful.
Vice versa it’s not a good idea. Unless someone has asked for help directly, it’s probably best to just stay out of it and mind your own business. Not everyone needs or wants unsolicited advice or know-how, oftentimes people just like the privacy of tackling problems on their own terms and in their own manner.
Mind the knowledge bias.
This is another thing that I saw happen a lot of times. People just assume that because they know, everybody else will know too. Unfortunately, the impact of this is extremely big sometimes.
Always tell a story, always give a context and absolutely always ask people if they need more information.
And last but not least, keep a damn list.
Put on paper the people that you interact with regularly and have in mind the things that you need to do for them or what they need to do for you.
It greatly helps to manage the relations properly.
