“What do I know about ____?”
Today, I had the pleasure of hearing Daymond John, of FUBU and Shark Tank fame, address a crowd of radio industry executives in New York City. Daymond, while extremely successful by every measure one can think of, started off by saying, “It’s always important to me to make sure I respect the experiences of the people in the room that have been working in this industry for as long as you have.” He then proceeded to talk about all the ways in which he might approach solving their problems and working in their industry for the next hour or so.
As a consultant, this is a critical concept and one many junior consultants fail to grasp. If you don’t acknowledge the challenges, the efforts, the wins, the losses, and the experiences of those you are trying to help, you never establish a level of humility that makes you approachable and respectable. By addressing the audience in this manner, Daymond set the stage that he’s not claiming to know better than the folks in the room…he’s just claiming to have a different perspective on the same challenges. For the entirety of his session, people were scribbling notes, listening intently, and asking some really hard questions of their neighbors, many of whom have been in radio for more than twenty, thirty, or even fifty years.
I’ve had the pleasure of working on Federal projects, bank applications, big data projects, voice application development, mobile development, telecom software, education technology, video games, and several other industries in my career thus far. God willing, I’ll add many more to that list. The key thing they all have in common? I’m not a subject matter expert in any of them (except maybe video games), but I was able to be an effective Product Manager.
Under-Think Things
One of Daymond’s quotes that stuck with me came in reference to how he deals with all of his investments. He remarked about the value he brings to the companies he invests in, and just how diverse they all are. He has investments ranging from physical bakeries to mail-order jerky, and everything in between. By no means is he an expert in each of those industries, but he is an expert in solving problems and looking at things in new ways. What’s his secret?
“Don’t overthink things, do the opposite. Under think things, dumb them down, make the complex simple.”
As a Product Manager, my primary charge is to go find answers. Will users like this? I dunno, let’s go find out. What’s the biggest pain we can solve for? I dunno, but I know how to find out. We should be able to distill complex problems into manageable chunks that can be solved for, and we should be confident to do that within any domain space. I know next to nothing about airplanes or machine learning, but I could PM my way to a product launch in 8 weeks for a product that sat at the intersection of those two spaces.
Know your Strengths, and Maximize Them
Once again, Daymond John is not a veteran of the radio industry. He doesn’t own any stations, he’s never managed a station, and he doesn’t have the track record of being a successful radio executive. Yet, he’s still able to walk into a room of CEOs, ownership groups, and industry stalwarts and deliver an impactful message.
Daymond knew he could do that. He didn’t have to worry about putting his foot in his mouth, or insulting the crowd, or saying something blatantly wrong. He’s experienced enough to know his strengths and how they apply to any industry, even radio. A great Product Manager should feel the same. Be confident in your ability to drive down to the core, most important problem to solve, and go solve for it.
One more important thing: Daymond’s expertise doesn’t come from sitting around and thinking, it comes from getting off his rear and doing, failing, succeeding, learning. Don’t sit in your fancy PM chair and dream up solutions, get out there and get some real users using your real stuff as quickly as possible. Be wrong, and learn from it. Be right, and move on. Most importantly, get over the idea of the PM as the “idea person” and start embracing the role of “Chief Finder Outer of Things.”
