A Note to Product Managers on Working from Home in a Time of Crisis
Below is an edited version of a note I sent to one of the product teams that I regularly coach. I hope that some of you find it helpful. ❤️
First and foremost — this is not a normal “work from home” situation. We are in a pandemic and people are sorting out critical questions of childcare, eldercare, adjusting to entirely new routines, fearing for the safety of themselves and their loved ones, etc. What follows is all based on — and shaped by — my own personal experience. Which is to say, if the below reads like “A brain dump from a 36-year-old with no children and an anxiety disorder who talks to product teams all day” then… yeah, that’s exactly what it is.
Working from home is a roller coaster of ambition and disappointment in the best of times, and these are not the best of times
A lot of product managers are overachievers, and you may have comforted yourself at the start of this by thinking about all the things you’re going to get done while working from home. Some of you might feel like you are expected to get lots and lots of things done during your time working from home; after all, there’s lots of talk on Twitter about how Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine and Newton discovered gravity in Quarantine and etc. etc.
Real talk: Most of my *good* WFH days look like this — 1) Look at big ambitious to-do list like HECK YEAH I’M GONNA GET SO MUCH STUFF DONE 2) Get *a small number of those things* done 3) Move the stuff I didn’t get done to the next day’s to-do list, disconnect, and try to muster some kindness and understanding for myself. And, again, that’s a good day, in a household without kids or interrupting pets.
This is an exceptionally strange and anxiety-provoking time, things are changing day by day, and these swings between peaks of SO MUCH PRODUCTIVITY TO DO and WAIT WHERE DID MY DAY GO I DON’T FEEL LIKE I GOT ANYTHING DONE are going to be particularly wild. Be kind to yourself because — I cannot stress this enough — if you are not extending genuine kindness and compassion to yourself, you are not able to extend genuine kindness and compassion to your team. A bit more on that….
Be aware that the standard you set for yourself is also the standard you set for your team
Product managers are often on the frontlines of interpersonal, emotional, and communication challenges for their teams. Given this, you may feel overwhelming and well-intended pressure to “power through” your own fear, anxiety, and exhaustion and be a strong and steady leader for your team.
Drawing on your strength and resolve is not a bad thing — when there is a genuine reservoir of strength and resolve to pull from. But if you choose to hide or disguise the challenges you are facing, you may be sending an unintentional message to your team that they, too, are expected to “power through” and not openly acknowledge their own challenges.
When I started working from home five years ago, I set about to “power through” for my team regardless of the challenges I was facing in my own life. As a result, I went through some truly nasty cycles of “powering through” and then burning out. Each of these cycles took a toll on my team — but to be perfectly honest, I think the “powering through” took a greater toll. Years later, one of my colleagues confided in me that she felt a bit of relief every time I burned myself out, as it stopped her from feeling too bad about not living up to the standard of punishing overwork that I had unintentionally set for the team.
If you’re struggling, share that struggle with your team. If you need to step away and take a mental health day, tell your team about it openly and honestly. If you are burying yourself in work as a coping mechanism — which I have certainly done during times of crisis— share that with your team as well. You can’t hold yourself to one standard and expect your team to hold themselves to a different standard — it just doesn’t work.
When things get weird (and things will get weird) try not to take it personally
Right now, two things are happening that greatly increase the likelihood of emotionally charged miscommunication on your team. First, everybody is dealing with serious personal challenges that will, inevitably, impact their energy, attitude, and communication style. Second, everybody is adjusting to remote collaboration tools that make it harder to read each other’s energy, attitude, and communication style.
Things are weird right now, things are going to stay weird for a while. People on your team will be exhausted, scared, stretched thin. You are going to participate in a lot of conversations where people seem distracted, impatient, or dismissive. To whatever extent you can avoid taking it personally — and this has been a struggle for me my entire career — now is the time to avoid taking it personally.
Relatedly, there will be times in the coming weeks and months when you will be exhausted, scared, stretched thin. You will say things and not sure if they were the right things to say. You may lose your cool in front of your colleagues. Again, try to extend the same kindness and understanding to yourself that you are extending to your teammates. Being hard on yourself does not make you a better product manager, a better collaborator, or a better person.
OVERCOMMUNICATE! OVERCOMMUNICATE! OVERCOMMUNICATE! (Overcommunicate!)
Overcommunication — to the point of being very annoying — is part of a product manager’s job. Working remotely — again, even under the best of circumstances — is like a medicine ball for the practice of overcommunication. Don’t assume that anybody knows anything, ever. Ask lots and lots of questions. Identify and obliterate your own assumptions. Show your work. This is not the time for you to disappear on your own and do lots of solo documentation and planning.
Remember — now more than ever — just because you sent around a document doesn’t mean anybody read it. Just because you made a deck doesn’t mean that anybody is acting on it. Now is the time to be even more committed to sharing works in progress, seeking feedback early and often, leaning into fixed constraints like One Page One Hour.
These articles by Sarah Milstein include a lot of great tactical advice for how remote teams can approach communication in a way that builds trust and enhances collaboration. As always, your mission when researching “best practices” is not to choose the “right” ones by yourself, but rather to bring some ideas to your team in the spirit of conversation, collaboration, and collective problem-solving. Your team’s success is your success, and your role as a connector is more important now than ever before.
