Mindful Product Management
Today is the 27th of May 2019.
Tomorrow I will turn 33.
And the past year has been a moment of great changes in my life.
I’ve moved to a new flat and new neighbourhood in my beloved Berlin.
I’ve changed job, joining the amazing product team of a wannabe unicorn internet startup.
I’ve traveled 3 continents, more than I have ever done in my entire life.
But, surprisingly enough, what deeply changed me is not on this list.
What really changed me has been devoting 45 minutes of my time, each day for two months, on practicing something radically new for me.
I have attended a meditation course: the MBSR (mindful based stress reduction) course.
And its outcome has been much broader than I would have ever expected.
It did not only impact my personal life, helping me to be more balanced and objective. It greatly impacted my life as a product professional as well.
And that’s what I want to share with you today, just before I turn 33.
1. Build deeper connections
One of the main responsibilities of product management is stakeholder management. It is the capability to relate with other people, explore their needs and be influential.
My understanding of stakeholder management was that it was all about solving problems. Full stop.
I am now aware that it is still fundamental, but it is not enough. Or, better, it is not the starting point.
What make relationships better is connection.
It is listening with open heart, empathising with others and acknowledging their situation.
Only when this is done, it is the moment to shift into problem solving mode.
Now, when I hear about a challenge someone is facing, I do not try to help them solving it right away.
I rather try to listen, understand more and share with him or her situations in which I have felt in the same way. Sometimes I even suggest them to take their time to think about what has happened.
This creates a common ground for acceptance and readiness for the following problem-solving phase.
Problems have their life-cycle: people need to accept them, before being ready to solve them. And your effectiveness as a product manager is greatly improved by being aware of this process.
2. Listen with open heart
Listening is an essential product management skill, to explore problems in their full richness, connect with people and get to the root causes of someone’s statements.
As Tara Brach says: “We spend most of our moments when someone is speaking, planning what we’re going to say, evaluating it, trying to come up with our presentation of our self, or controlling the situation. Pure listening is a letting go of control. It’s not easy and takes training… The bottom line is when we are listened to, we feel connected. When we’re not listened to, we feel separate.”
Listening is a skill which is very difficult to develop and the course provided me with a tool that is helping me to improve it.
It is called the communication calendar.
It involves recalling and recording, at the end of the day before you go to bed, one communication experience, replying to the following questions:
- With whom? What subject?
- What did you want/ how did you want to be treated?
- What did you actually get (in terms of outcome and treatment)?
- What do you think the other person wanted? What did they actually get (outcome/treatment)?
- How did you feel (physically and emotionally) during and after?
- What do you notice now (physical/emotional/mental) as you recall this communication?
And what has really opened my mind is the 4th question, since it forces you to consider what the other person wanted. To really do this, you would have to, at least for the moment, put yourself in the other party’s shoes.
And taking time to reflect on my daily communications helped me to empathise with others and have more effective communication.
3. Sometimes you just need to STOP
Product management, as most managerial positions, can be a really stressful job. You receive requests with contrasting priorities from different groups of people, you need to be on top of your game and, ultimately, deliver impact.
The course taught me a useful practice for particularly stressful moments, called “STOP”.
It is something you can do in 5 seconds as well as in some minutes. And helps to connect with the present moment, relativise what is happening and proceed further.
It is about stopping and focusing on how you are feeling in a specific moment, taking a deep breath and reconnecting to the world around you, following these steps:
- “Stop” and take Stock: checking in to your body by deliberately asking yourself “What is my experience right now?”
- “Take” a breath: directing awareness to breathing
- “Open” and Observe: expand the awareness to your body as a whole
- “Proceed”: let your attention into what is happening around you and go ahead without expectations
It has greatly helped me to manage stressful situations.
Well, this was a brief and condensed summary of how the MBSR course is informing my product management practice. How to better connect with people through empathy, how to improve listening skills and how to alleviate stressful situations.
And below you can find an example that proved me how this is changing the way I interact with people.
A few days ago I was talking with a friend that had lost his job. In the past I would have jumped straight away into problem solving mode, suggested to rework is LinkedIn profile, made intros and so on and so forth.
Differently, this time I just shut up and let him talk. After he finished, I have shared with him how I felt when something similar happened to me and how bad it was. I then reminded him about his achievements, how things sometimes are out of our control and I suggested him to take some time to reflect on what had happened.
And his response, the day after our chat, was a big thank you message, not because I had helped him to find a solution, but because he felt better and relieved.
And only then I gave him concrete suggestions, that he was finally ready to accept.
I know that this is not exactly a product management example, but it has been for me a sign of how a mindful approach can foster deeper connection and improve communication effectiveness. Qualities that are fundamental for a PM.
Make more people happy with your words by trying out these practices, and clap if you find them interesting!
Have a mindful journey,
— Livio
27/05/2019
P.S.: Why am I spending hours writing articles like this? Find out more in the post linked below (and clap, if you find it interesting 👇).
