From Sorority President to Product Manager and Back
Before I can even hear my own morning yawn, I feel fourteen vibrations coming from my iPhone. Each vibration adds a task to my to-do list, conveniently planning out the next twelve hours of my day. After rehearsing twenty different conversations that I’m going to have with twenty different personalities, I get ready and head out the door.
Of course, my to-do list hadn’t accounted for the unexpected. This includes the hours I would spend dealing with unforeseen situations or the minutes of decompression during which I would remind myself, “No, they don’t actually hate me, they just hate me right now because I’m in this position.” During this inevitable miniature existential crisis, I dial my mentor, who is skilled in giving me reality checks when I need them most. After four deep breaths post-call, I prepare for the final task on my schedule: Time to speak with the executive board about the proposed changes to the structure of our weekly meetings.
Despite a couple of disagreements and deviations from my original ideas, the board effectively agrees on a new way to approach our meetings. I walk away excitedly daydreaming about how our decision will turn out in practice. A replica of the yawn that had been buried by the vibrations in the morning creeps from my mouth, indicating that it’s time for bed. Tomorrow will be another frenzy, but it will be a frenzy that will bring our organization closer to our collective goal.
Though I had gotten used to this schedule this past semester as the president of my sorority, it took only two weeks of the summer for me to realize that my dream career was mirroring this daily routine.
As a current product management intern for a budding startup, I have been pleasantly surprised by the extent to which my skills as sorority president can be applied directly to my summer position. In particular, I have realized that the connection between the roles can be seen in the following four attributes:
Communication
In my job as a PM intern, I have to communicate with coworkers who are older and far more experienced than me. They have seen the product’s evolution, they have made their early career mistakes, and they are already familiar with the personalities within the office. I, on the other hand, had to first spend a week learning everyone’s names, before even getting to know their personas.
My first semester as president also brought the same type of age dynamic. Not only did I have to appropriately communicate with the 186 different personalities within my sorority, but also I had to communicate and form relationships with the members of the National Council, the Panhellenic Council, and the university.
Communicating with others, especially if a relationship hasn’t been established, is one of life’s greatest challenges. Why? Because no two people are ever the same. One person might get easily offended by a comment while another person might high-five in agreement to the same comment. For instance, it is often the case that PMs will make critical remarks about an unsuccessful feature, undermining the designers and developers who spent days/weeks/months to implement it. Being attentive and aware of how others might react is key. There is no one-size-fits-all mold for how to communicate, so it is up to the leader to really learn about the people they will be working with.
Without communication, there is no chance at a future relationship, and relationships are needed to obtain respect and trust. My goal is to be the person, both in my sorority and in my career, that people will look to for advice and opinions.
Empathy
Feedback is frightening. It really is. No one likes to openly take a hit on their ego, but without the genuine opinions from the stakeholders, an organization cannot thrive.
Within the first two weeks of my internship, I was able to recruit ten participants for usability studies. Though there are mixed opinions about these studies and their actual benefits, it can never hurt to emphasize that the users are being heard. Of course, we didn’t go and change our product’s entire UI just because two participants did not immediately get to the desired screen, but the tests were crucial for us to see how a sample of our audience was using the product. We had to be decisive yet collaborative.
My sorority doesn’t have customers, but it does have over 1,100 potential new members evaluating the chapter every January. Those are just the outsiders. Internally, the executive board has to consider the opinions of the other 173 members. I didn’t say should, I said has to. The only way for the executive board to succeed is by making others successful. Retention rates within my sorority wouldn’t be healthy if members felt like they weren’t contributing.
Much like the initial reaction of the product team when I asked if I could conduct usability studies, there were times when the executive board was hesitant to push out feedback surveys to the entire chapter. When we got over the fears of scrutiny and judgment, we were able to take the results of the surveys and truly excel. We found out that chapter meetings weren’t engaging, that freshmen wanted more academic programs, and that seniors felt detached from the new members of the sorority. The executive board’s response? We changed the structure of chapter meetings to include more interactive content, we instilled a more robust academic mentorship program, and we scheduled baking days and group dinners for the seniors to bond with the new members.
By hearing the opinions of others and making more informed decisions more often, an entire organization is able to triumph — just like my sorority and startup.
Wearing Many Hats
The majority of my enthusiasm when waking up and getting dressed for work comes from not knowing exactly what I will be doing for the next ten hours. Sure, I have a good idea of the typical tasks that I will have to perform, but product management, especially for a startup, is so much more than that. Some days I will walk into the office and go straight into a design meeting. Some days I’ll spend hours mocking up new features and flows. Other days will bring me spreadsheets and numbers as I conduct health checks on the different features of the product. The opportunity to provide input on the product vision in such a great amount of ways is a complete privilege, and it keeps me from ever reaching a point of intellectual stagnation.
Back on campus, the intellectual growth is also exponential. My role as the leader of an executive board of 13 members and a chapter of 186 members brings me the Jira tickets of life — endless meetings with university officials, weekly chapter presentations, and Friday nights spent being the not-so-liked risk manager. Each of these “tickets” equips me with a different hat, and it is often difficult to balance all of them.
It’s hard to be a friend when I have to be a risk manager, and it’s hard to be a regular college student when I am the one who must take the blame for the actions of any one of my chapter’s members. Oftentimes I find that trying to balance the hats in an attempt to please everyone — whether it be the women in my sorority, my co-workers, or the intended audience of my startup’s product — leads to a feeling of loneliness. Though I’m convinced that it is impossible to achieve a perfect solution, each situation so far has taught me a lesson about myself and has reminded me that I’m human and have so much room to grow.
Not Beating Myself Up
When only two women in my entire pledge class showed up to our new member initiation ceremony, I was heartbroken — so heartbroken that I had dismissed any logical excuses, such as how upperclassmen attendance had not been required in previous years. In reality, their absence had not been an attack on me or a silent protest, but it sure felt like it.
In the product management world, I had to realize that varying opinions during design reviews were also not personal attacks, and neither were disagreements or instances of critical feedback. Rather than committing one of the worst crimes as a leader, and by that I mean getting defensive, I had to take criticism as a pure opportunity to learn and to grow.
Part of being a leader is realizing that there is no need to take everything so personally. Sure, it took four months of my Greek advisor drilling this concept into my head for me to really start living by it, but my day-to-day definitely became easier when I could successfully create a space between me and my emotions. Don’t get me wrong, some days are harder than others, and sometimes I agonize about what I could have done differently to change the outcome or make a new product feature more compelling. It’s more important to relax and focus the energy on making the next iteration a bigger step forward.
When I first joined my sorority, I was told that what you got out of the organization was a function of what you put in. As the current president, I have the privilege and responsibility of not only maximizing my contribution, but also enabling others to do the same. I wish it were as simple as it sounds. Sometimes it’s frustrating to be a visionary, especially when it feels like the whole team isn’t also losing sleep over the gritty details. But when the hard work begins to pay off and new members express interest in becoming leaders themselves, the joy immediately justifies the collective sacrifices it took to get there.
In my role as a product management intern, I can resurface this same joy. After a summer of usability tests, brainstorming sessions, product roadmaps, design discussions, and presentations, it will be rewarding to see how the features I refined and improved will lead to more organic growth and engagement with the product.
My days are never predictable, but the lack of consistency adds to the excitement I feel when thinking about the successes and possible failures of tomorrow. As my summer internship comes to a close, I feel confident in saying that the routine will never end, and I don’t want it to ever end.
