Are You A Self Aware Product Manager?
As a product manager, it is essential to know what you do well, what you do exceptionally well, what you do bad, and what you suck at.
Product managers (and professionals) who are self-aware are typically more successful, have grown more than their peers, have created successful products, and are great leaders.
So the question is: how does one become self-aware?
Before we answer that question, it is essential to understand that “thinking” that you are self-aware is not the same as genuinely being self-aware. Researchers say that about 95% of people think they are self-aware, but only 10 to 15% genuinely are.
I was recently chatting with a product leader and asked them how they test for self-awareness when interviewing product managers. They shared the “Meeting your clone” technique, which resonated with me.
Here is how it goes:
- Think about a meeting that you had with multiple stakeholders. Try to choose a meeting that had a good mix of technical and business stakeholders. Also, choose a meeting in which the attendees had differing opinions.
- Now, imagine that all of the attendees in that room are an exact clone of you: they think, behave, and act like you.
How do you think that meeting will go?
I played this scenario in my mind and then documented the things that would work well/not well and its reason. I then clubbed my findings by the skill that they represented.
🧠 Product sense
What:
- All of us would identify and agree on the problem to solve. Most of the solutions that we create would be low on creativity.
- We might get into the details of each solution. As a result, we might be reducing execution speed and not focusing on the larger picture.
Why:
- I am left-brained.
- I like to go deep before committing to a solution. That sometimes distracts me from the larger goal and slows me down.
