The four habits of impactful product managers

Habit n°2 — CHECK

Do you know Albert Einstein? Of course you do. He needs no introduction. You know him, you know the name of his theory, you are familiar with his face, with the shape of his moustache, and you can probably go as far as accurately quoting his most famous equation. No other scientist has reached such a celebrity status. Think about it. Among the people who know Isaac Newton, how many can quote one of his equations, or say whether he had a moustache?

What you may not know is that Einstein did not reach worldwide notoriety on his own. It was Arthur Eddington, a now forgotten British astrophysicist, who made him famous, and it happened literally overnight: until November 5th 1919, Einstein was relatively unknown except to the German scientific community. The next day, on November 6th, he was called a genius and his face printed over newspapers worldwide. That sudden glory materialized only thanks to Arthur Eddington.

How did he do that? Eddington crossed the Atlantic with a tremendous amount of equipment in order to bring experimental proof to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The theory itself had come out three years earlier, in 1916, without making any front pages. Eddington’s story illustrates the two main aspects of the Check mindset.

Look for facts

Experiments, facts, objective observations are a very powerful tool to motivate people, convince them — and yourself. Do not engage too far in theoretical arguments, do not try to “win” them; look for objectivity at all times. What shows us that a given idea or theory is right? Do we have data or facts supporting it? If not, can we build an experiment? You have a responsibility in framing the conversation in a way that will lead to discussing facts.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” — Winston Churchill

In order to be good at that, you need to have a data-driven mindset: be diligent on defining measurable way for each of your projects, experiments, proofs of concepts. That supposes an inside out knowledge of metrics that matter for your product: not only their value, but also their context and their limits. How are they exactly defined and computed, why they matter, what is the confidence interval around the data that we can measure? The more you master the context and limits of your metrics, the more you will be able to leverage the right data in the appropriate context.

Don’t sit at your desk

The corollary of that obsession is that you need to be deeply anchored in the reality of your product. You can’t know your product in theory, you have to try it by yourself, and check that the experience you aim at delivering to your customer is actually the one that they get.

There are many great examples of that attitude in the product world. One I like is the product manager of a banking product who went into debt in order to personally experience the feeling of being in dire need for a loan. Another is Anthony Levandowski, the former chief technologist for Google’s autonomous car project. Despite being a (certainly busy) chief technologist, he spent an insane amount of time just using his product. In his case, it meant sitting for hours in an autonomous car and observing its behavior, decisions, and mistakes — which could be fatal to him.

Eddington crossed the Atlantic to make sure his experience would turn out the way he wanted. I am sure you can manage to cross the street.

Reading advice about CHECK

You should read Thinking, fast and slow, by Nobel prize laureate Daniel Kahneman. A very readable book about behavioral economics: it explains why you need to check if what people say matches their behavior, and rely on experiment rather than theory.

Also read this great article about Anthony Levandowski, the former chief technologist for Google’s autonomous car project. On top of explaining his obsession for using his own product, you will get a glimpse at the fantastic early days of the development of autonomous cars.

Next articles

Habit n°3 — CRAFT: Illustrate and summarize as much as you can.

Habit n°4 — CATALYZE: Ensure quality decisions and keep a lean mindset.

Previous articles

Introduction: Letter to a new PM.

Habit n°1 — CARE: Build empathy for your customers and colleagues.