How to Influence Without Authority by BestBuy Sr Product Manager

so I'll give you a quick intro of myself before I get into the topic so I'm a lead product manager at Best Buy I lead the entire multi-channel trade that's basically solving problems for customers in the stores using the mobile app how do I deliver value for them so things I look after is inventory product scanning in-store product comparison in-store pickup all the kind of stuff last product fulfillment those kind of things and I've been a product manager for about eight years I was a developer before that I worked for Home Depot I work for Bed Bath & Beyond finally Best Buy and throughout my career I've seen that product managers are generally leaders but nobody reports to them right it's only after the first six or seven years of my career that I actually had direct reports and I mean six or seven years of being a product manager I was an individual contributor for a very long time yet you are a leader and you lead hundreds of people so sounds a little funny right like how do you lead so many people without anyone without managing their growth without managing their I mean payroll or anything but you still give direction and people actually listen to you so I want to talk a little bit about that today also about today's presentation I didn't get any of the material from any of the books or slides or anything I did I just made I made up everything so my slides may not look too great but you have my chance so you have that to take away cool so how do influence without Authority right yeah like I said my charm is the biggest takeaway right but the three things that I would want you to take away from here is number one influence is the key to product success we talked about that Y influences the key Y influence is so important why companies think they are important right number two different skills are required for influencing different people we will talk about different circles of influence you have your direct circle you have a middle circle you have an extended circle how do you influence different people what are the different skills that we need and finally okay shared of objectives across an or got key for disruptive products right these are all related to influence so we'll have some time for questions in the end but it gets started right let's reintroduce what a product manager typically does what are the skills required for product manager right so number one a product manager comes up with a vision right a vision for an eye for a product solving a problem the my vision for using the Best Buy app inside of a store is blue shirt in your hand so when you have the app inside of a store and they're moving around it's as good as having an associate in your hand that's my vision so that's that's that's what a product manager does a product manager also works on customer development you have a target customer you define who the customer is you do that you also set some goals and with goals come success metrics you prioritize which school is important what over the other right and you execute you work with engineering UX and you execute your ideas you also market your feature in the industry you make sure that you get more and more users to actually use your features and finally you monitor success right but this meeting is not about a product knowledge of skills we're talking specifically about influence but these are the core skills yet a product manager faces a lot of challenges right number one sorry right too little time you are required I like at any point of time my calendar is triple-booked right you're required at three places at one point of time because you have multiple lines of product running depending on the depending on what portfolio are in somewhere there is a vision conversation somewhere there's a developer who wants help someone there's marketing with oneself so you have very little time so priority is a huge concern you don't have any authority like you have like the company expects you to do magic right but nobody's opposed to you that's that's the biggest truth right there were days when the big bosses the GM's would decide what to do that would trickle down to program manager the project managers and program managers would take action but the product manager role has changed everything most of the decisions happen bottom up the product manager decides who the customer is they decide what to do and the leadership only sets the company vision right so that's how it's changed but how are you supposed to do that when you don't have people reporting in to you right sometimes your team is not motivated you have people quitting all the time now you don't you don't you're not their boss but then you're expected to motivate the team right and not having an unmotivated team is a huge challenge you have external dependencies on which you have no control api's vendors even though you are supposed to work on the customer people say work ninety-nine percent of your times on the customer but you have all these other things which pull you down and unknown situations there can be anything but the biggest one is organization bureaucracy right that is the biggest challenge that a product manager faces typically I'll give you my example right like I work in Best Buy which is one of the largest consumer it is the largest consumer chronic eater in the world I work with stakeholders who've been with the company for 30 years and for them a product is a washing machine a refrigerator an app is not a product right so and there are people who whose objectives are different and there's a lot of bureaucracy there's a lot of approvals required at every stage there's a lot of there's a lot of red tape so that's what a product manager has to navigate and because of that these are some skills that are super important but are often overlooked this is this is one of the things that you don't see in job description too much but this is super important public speaking right being able to talk to a large crowd being able to be confident talking to unfamiliar audiences just making cribs just to have conversations right that is something a product manager is required to do but often overlooked number two documentation writing white papers writing thought papers writing press releases that's something a product manager has to do but nobody talks about them right like these these are things you discover on the job right motivating people right you have to be a motivator you cannot be working in a silo not talking to anyone making people upset like you have to motivate the team you rally a team around you and finally influencing and that's what we're going to talk about today so why is influencing what is influencing briefly right so the art of getting others to believe in what you believe in right and getting support from them that's what influence is making other people support your cause that's what influences right and we'll talk about how influencing is different from convincing and why it's so important in a in the context of a product right why is influencing important right so this is something this is a very basic diagram but very true and this is something I've seen a lot of times I've had a lot of product friends who've had brilliant original ideas right like something like sending people to Mars right that's and that's an original brilliant idea right but then you go through an organization's bureaucracy right like at every layer your challenge becomes harder right you deal with someone you deal with the manager then you deal with the director then you deal with a VP if you're an organization where titles are big that's a huge problem right you need to get approvals from people you need to convince people and finally what you get is an is a very very small outcome right like you wanted to send someone to the mark someone to Mars but you can't send someone to the restaurant next door so that's what actually happens a lot of big brilliant ideas get shot down even before they reach I mean a consensus stage like they they get shot down stripped down what you normally get is only 5% of what he originally thought through so most of the companies want p.m. to be influencers right so I picked up I went to LinkedIn and I looked at the top three job descriptions of three of the biggest companies like Amazon Microsoft Google they hire the most product managers each of them like almost every single job description has this thing listed we need someone who is an influencer right and even when you go for interviews you're asked his questions in different shapes and forms tell me about a time when you've actually had to get the consensus of a group to get something done tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult stakeholder these are all about influences and that's something that right now I've seen in the last few years these companies are openly mentioning that in their job descriptions that in and what they want from people right so we'll jump straight away into topic about influence the product manager works with a lot of people right and there are different circles of influence and this is this is a very practical approach to the way I look at circle of influence so the first thing is your inner circle of influence right you have the you work with a an agile team you work with it some developers you work with some UX people you work with some Quality Assurance people some testers you also sometimes have a product leader like a lead product manager or a director who's directly above your team in most tech companies this is called a squad you are given ownership of a specific problem to solve and you're supposed to solve that problem so that's the inner circle again no one reports to you but you have some what authority you have some kind of authority because the devs are gonna work on user stories that you write the UX is gonna start solving problems that you define so you have some what and an influence but even even though they all reported the respect to people then you have the middle circle of influence that involves other product managers shared services like if I want to if I want to show inventory in an a mobile app or Mobile's or a mobile website I the shared service could be the inventory service that gets store inventory for me right so there are ratings and reviews could be a shared service so there are other product managers from other organizations who form the middle circle there's heavy dependency on them because while you define customer problems and customer solutions they give you the data they give you the tools for you for that to happen right and finally there is the outer circle like if you played super mario super mario have you guys played mario the nintendo game there these guys are the dragons right so they actually pull down everything because it's very very hard to influence them they are finance marketing operations customer service and the problem is all of them have completely different objectives most product managers think their problem is the biggest it's great great to be passionate but for them their agenda is completely different right so that's how it is so I'm going to talk about influencer based on a scenario right I'm going to create a hypothetical scenario I try I thought very hard I wanted to give you a real case study of how I've solved something like that but this is very similar to a real case today let's talk about a hypothetical scenario let's say amy is a product manager and she works for an e-commerce company and apparel company write this micelle Apparel's and she is manager of the mobile app the shopping experience a very small portion of a very large business and her objective given to her by management is sell more right let's say it's very common it's a very common profile in any large e-commerce company Amazon even Microsoft on the retail side this is something that you always have now any-any she crafts an idea she thinks of a problem and she crafts an idea and this is the way she crafts it she defines a problem that's what a product manager does she says middle-class working parents find it hard to keep buying clothes for their growing kids right abstract but yeah it's a problem right market size there are about a hundred million such families in the u.s. solution she wants to create an a membership an order subscription service where if someone played would pay $20 a year they would get 40% off on anything they bought right a subscription service and with that she wanted to mitigate the problem of parents wanting to buy clothes for their kids right middle-class parents and she estimates that in the first year she's gonna lose two million dollars but in three years she's gonna gain twenty million dollars right this is something a product manager it's an everyday thing people do this all the time you think of ideas you do five or six of this any time right so there's something she does now she depends she wants to influence her inner circle right sure so she gives them the task she tells them let's build a subscription service right let's start building it engineers start looking at services UX start building the UX and all that stuff but then there are issues right first one the team thinks it's too complicated right they don't understand why they're being asked to do something over what they're already doing the UX does not believe this is an innovation like this is a classic thing between product in UX write UX think they own the product product thing they also own the product right but they both of them own the customer part of the product belongs to the customer right so conflict right how do you how do you deal with the situation and this is only the inner circle it's a very common situation if you have a smart UX person working in your team they want to be involved they didn't want to be told what to do right now he reaches to his paw he reaches to his peers who are product managers in different teams he wants to figure out what the dependency is with other product managers she figures out that she needs something on the home page a home page entry point she needs to create a new browser experience she wants to create a new way for subscription right she wants to influence the checkout PM so that the checkout PM the the mobile checkout PM can create a subscription experience for her and she wants to talk to the fulfillment product manager who is gonna basically create the ability to fulfill orders on a periodic basis so it's all tasks that different product managers have to do but she rehash roadblocks on those places as well common things you get from other product managers when you got when you want them to do your stuff they already have something on their roadmap okay that has a higher ROI ROI is return on investment right see they have something that's that that they believe is going to give them higher ROI their boss things this is not something in this is not something that's very important and they need to prioritize this over something else finally we need to build new services and I don't have the resources right so in short they don't think it's important they don't give a damn right basically you've given them a task and it's fallen flat but and this is where most product gets killed and this is not even the hardest circle right so what are the different issues here let's try to figure it out number one is we didn't make the team like when you talk about the inner circle it's super important that we make them believe in the cause right and influence starts right there right you make them believe in the cause in the problem you are trying to solve not on the solution you don't give them a solution that I want to build a subscription service make them feel the problem make them emotional right so we didn't show them who the customer is number one we didn't involve the inner circle in any kind of research right we didn't give them a chance to provide any ideas right so they feel very left out they feel passed over you've just given us a task that was the number one issue when we spoke about the inner circle right issue two being two solution focused right we directly came she directly came up with a subscription service where as she should have spoken more about the problem which is the problem that that parents are facing what is the what is the real problem the middle Americans are facing is it is that money is it status is it lack of time are they working parents she didn't talk about the problems so basically solution creates opinions everybody's gonna have an opinion about a solution like this is not cool the scars not great but problems create emotion right when you when you tell people that I mean Americans are middle class Americans cannot afford something right then it creates a motion it binds a lot of people together so that is that was number one the other thing and issue three is convincing someone and something they don't believe in like you give them a task and they try to convince them so confined convincing and influence is kind of different right convincing is basically when you and I have different goals and for example say I wanted to have coffee and you wanted to have soda right and I try to convince you to have coffee that's not going to work right because in your mind you already have decided that you want soda but influencing is when I try to change your objective right shared goals let's start to have a good time let's try to have a conversation right that's where it starts so convincing and influencing convincing is about trying to change your goal influencing is about sharing a goal right convincing is basically when you want an output from someone and we just want someone to do something for us it's like very mathematical very transactional and influencing is when you want an outcome from someone so we want to be successful I need your help to be successful right in Flook invincible tasks influencing is about goals we spoke about that and convincing is you're trying to be a hero you wanna you want to take all the credit by getting the input from everyone influencing is you're the leader right but you want everyone to be successful so let's put this in a little bit of perspective right so when you want to convince someone here are a couple of questions that I would ask myself and I would run through every single person what's the problem I want to solve like the Probot so what is exactly the problem I want to solve do I know the other person's goal right we'll solving a problem also address their goal right for example in my case my goal is to create money crea satisfy customers with the substance of scription service but the fulfillment product managers goal is to deliver more packages every single hour right and deliver it efficiently they're completely different right how do I now influence their goal right now is my goal more important for them is basically creating more influence I mean making more parents happy is it more important than delivering more packages right can I get part of their goal into my goal as well can I say that I want to make these parents happy and I also want to make sure that this fulfillment reaches a 99% satisfaction level right so can we share our goals in some way can be marry them in something in a certain way okay like can I tweak my goal to also impact their KPIs do I promise do I promise to share my success with them this is another thing like many product managers are very concerned about losing credit for success of the product the unsaid rule is if the product is successful the you have the product manager is always successful it doesn't matter who gets the credit the product manager always gets the credit right so the more the merrier like if you can share a success with more people it's always good it's like everyone should be part of it then then then the impact can be much higher right will they have a stake on this with me like someone is willing we'll be willing to do something for you only if they have a stake in it only if they make an investment only if they like in my world what I do is we we follow the sub we swallow the principal of objectives and key results and I've had to tell why I try to help my peers here's the problem I'm trying to solve I'm gonna put this down in my appraisal sheet my gold sheet I want you to put this in your gold sheet and then that person has a stake in that right and that's how then both of us have to make it successful both of us have to make it happen to make it successful it's now it's not solution oriented but its objective oriented right and will they feel passionate about my problem they'll only do something for you they feel passionate about your problem right so these are a couple e's a couple of questions I would ask every single influence every single person I want to influence before trying to put my goal before trying to put my goal forward right so here's how I would restate the problem right I'll take you here to give you a minute to read it but I sense sleeeeep I'm on middle-class Americans never to worry about being able to afford clothes for the growing kids I have every evidence that 25% of our made American middle-class families can't buy new clothes for their kids every year and kids are forced to wear non fitting clothes to their schools I really need your help with solve this problem will you be my partner to do this and solve this it could bring a lot of smiles to the kids and the company could make 10 million in three years I'd love to hear about how you would help us solve this problem I have this idea but want to understand your perspective right so it's basically drafting it in a way that you're making other people partners you make you're influencing that you're making them stakeholders you're making them put something you're making them put a back in the problem you're trying to solve so that is something the way I would influence my immediate inner circle and the middle circle right but when you reach out to the outer circle right the issues are much more complicated they are magnified right so for example operations legal and stakeholders they have completely different goals operations would say right this needs the new process right I don't really more off more often than our operations are not worried about customers they are worried about efficiency right this requires a new process I need to get VP approval right you cannot auto sell and the legal could say you cannot auto sell any kind of fabric there are some federal rules we have to respect them so we cannot do this right category manager specifically in retail companies are never willing to give away a share of conversion like that this is this is a very common this is a common thing short term versus long term short term loss versus long term gain people are not willing to see that right so how do you convince these people who are very difficult to convince right so one other thing I do is engage their interest very early right you try to restate the problem to them over and over again way before you are actually trying to present an entire business case right you just try to say and what what I do is basically repeat repeat repeat over and over again go for informal lunches happy hours at a ping-pong table wherever they try to meet these people and try to plant your idea in their head before you actually make formal customer business presentation that is something I think is super important like before I wanted to launch I recently launched an app for Best Buy employees to be used in the store and before and there was a lot of opposition for operations because they didn't want store associates to be holding a mobile device when they should be talking to a customer right their whole goal was getting more out of an employee every hour my goal was to help customers and by empowering employees I could help customers better in order to get that done I made a trip to Minnesota where the operations team is I made a trip there 11 months before I actually started the product right and I made a trip again nine months before then I made a trip again seven months before they don't d-day right and every single time I would go and play ping pong with every single person right try to influence them try to try to just plant this idea hey here's this idea what do you think at first they would dismiss it but when they hear it over and over again they're so bored they have to say yes right so that's what ultimately happens so keep repeating the same stuff over and over again even if they are against it they are from they are familiar right and when someone's familiar with something its influencing becomes a little easier right but obviously it's nowhere close to the end right strong customer and business documentation a lot of companies follow this policy right so basically press releases white papers projections all these kind of things one of the things I've seen here is in a company like Amazon right where the whole company follows the same procedure the press release of the white paper works in a lot of companies it doesn't work right so creating different kind of material for different audience is super important some people like to slider decks some people want to dive deep so understanding the context of the audience and preparing material for them that makes them confident that you know what you're talking about your research has to be foolproof your business case has to be really strong and different material for different kinds of audiences super-important right and and also getting stakeholders to contribute to your document you can even share a document that is 30% done but yet inputs from them to actually build the case along with your stakeholders along with the people you want to influence let them be partners and then it becomes a much stronger case right let others champion your cause for example like here let's say Amy wanted the product manager of operations to help her with setting up the operations for this whole initiative the product manager operations are proposed to the VP of Operations there's no way she's thinking she can get this done this year because the product manager of operations has a full roadmap there's no way that person is going to accommodate that so the way you can do that is but but she has a very good relationship with the product manager of fulfillment right because they probably work on the same team they've been from the same school call it who knows but she has a very good relationship so if the product manager of fulfillment and Amy have the same shared goal the product manager of fulfillment can actually play the role of influencing right so you can actually have allies in different organization who can play your role right and that's going back to the same thing because you're the product manager it doesn't mean you have to be in every single product meeting it doesn't mean you have to talk to every single person once you know about the product letting others champion your cause actually makes a product stronger right like there been many product demonstrations for where I'm haven't been I have let developers demo my product two vice-presidents like the lack of attention yeah to a certain extent it's important but more than anything to influence you need to let other people take center stage right let them feel important let them do the convincing for you for you the objective is the product should be successful it's not you it's not about you it's about the product and about the customer right so letting other people's champion the cause is super important so shared so once we do all this we have most of these people we've spoken about they can have shared objectives and key results right so if everyone had the same objective and the objective was basically to help parents afford clothes for their kids through this new subscription program and everyone had the same key result the same metric that they were working against which is add say 20 million new customers generate 10 million in three years and lose 2 million in the first year then it becomes a lot easier then you've influenced everyone you influence everyone to create a disruptive product right that's but to reach the stage it's a very very long process it involves influence the influencing the inner circle then the middle circle and then finally the external circle right so that becomes a share of session right so the learnings I would communicate here is influencing again is the key to product success understanding the inner and outer circles and influence in different ways depending on the situations right share objectives is equal to share obsession so these are the three key learnings that I would hope that we get from this session and that's it thank you you

Channel: Product School

Views: 5,692

Rating: 4.942029 out of 5

Keywords: Product, Product Manager, Product Management, Product School, Tech Startups, Data Analytics, Coding for Managers, How to get a job, product manager salary, product manager resume, product manager jobs, what is product management, what is a product manager, product management training, how to become a product manager, cracking the product manager interview, product management jobs, google, machine learning, ai, Machine Learning Products, Technology, Career

Id: 05N8noJO0gs

Length: 27min 27sec (1647 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019