Compassionate Product Manager
There's more than being effective
How often have you beaten yourself up for something you thought you’ve done wrong? Failing an interview, launched a product that didn’t show initial success, failing to get leadership approval on a proposal, misspoke or did not speak up enough , or even just, being late to a meeting?
As product managers, we focus on being effective everyday. Rightfully so. In fact, I wrote a long series of articles about it. But, have we overlooked something else that’s equally important? Be compassionate. For others, and for ourselves.
In this post, I will discuss the importance of, and how to be a compassionate product manager.
What Is Compassion
Compassion is usually defined as “the feeling that arises when confronted with another’s suffering and the motivation to relieve that suffering”. So it differs from “sympathy” and “empathy” in that:
With sympathy you feel bad about someone else’s suffering
With empathy you feel what someone else feels
With compassion, you take a step further and do something about relieving that suffering
When we think about these words including compassion, we think of our attitude toward others. But “self-compassion” is important, too. In fact, being compassionate to oneself is where we start from, before we can truly be compassionate for others.
What does self-compassion mean then?
You recognize and feel your own suffering when it comes up. Instead of judging or denying it, you let it be, seek to understand it, and then feel motivated to do something about addressing it. As if you’re facing someone else you love or truly care about.
Why Is Compassion Important to Product Managers
With compassion for others:
You feel the pains and challenges of your customers, users, stakeholders, and cross functional team members
You feel motivated to address their pains and challenges by improving the products, processes, and communications
You are more easily “be in their shoes” when they come across with something that doesn’t immediately align with your view point or values
With self-compassion:
You avoid going down the frustration and self blame spiral when the going gets tough (which happens to PMs all the time).
You feel the positive energy to look for self improvement opportunities in a growth mindset, rather than being stuck in thinking yourself as a failure. There’s rarely a trait that’s more important for a PM, than continuous self awareness, learning and improvements.
You will be happier as a PM and as a person, which radiates and influences people around you to be happier.
If you are an introvert in product like me, there are probably even more scenarios you’d beat yourself up and feel like an imposter among all other seemingly more successful, more influential around you. Self compassion will, as it has for me, help us in moving forward with the positive mentality.
To be sure, self compassion doesn’t mean self indulgence or self excuse. The key here is to clearly recognize the pain, understand the source of it, be kind to yourself, while thinking about how to be better gradually and in the long term.
How To Develop Compassion
Like picking up any skills, it’s through learning and practicing. Learning about the compassion and how it helps you. Practicing it in your daily life and daily product management circumstances and challenges.
In Tara Brach’s book “Radical Compassion”, a highly recommended book to learn about compassion, she provided a useful framework RAIN to help us practice, when challenges hit:
Recognize: recognize the physical sensation or discomfort that comes up when you face the challenge. E.g. when you feel stressed in a leadership presentation. How does your body feel? Is your heart pounding? Head spinning? Don’t let it go unnoticed.
Allow: let the feeling be it, and be ok with that feeling. Know that it’s a natural reaction, so don’t judge or be caught up in it. Think to yourself: “I’m nervous right now, and this is how nervousness feels like”.
Investigate: Understand the source of the discomfort and feeling. In reality, you might not have a lot of time to really “analyze” into it. That’s ok. When things come up repeatedly, like for me, nervousness in high stake meetings, you’d almost immediately know what’s going on. You can take the time after the fact to reflect and really “investigate”.
Nurture: Now imagine a person that would be kind to you. Your best friends, spouse, parents, or even yourself (who doesn’t want to be kind to him/herself?). Self can be to picture your future, calmer, better, more successful version of yourself. Imagine the person to talk to you with kindness. What would he/she say? It’s entirely up to you. For me, it’d be something like, for example: “It’s ok, it’s natural and it’s a part of the process, and you know you’re always aware of the challenges and are improving, and you know you’ll be like me, 10 years from now”.
Framework too complicated? The simplest way would be to remind yourself to PAUSE. PAUSE the moment you sense the challenge within yourself and with others. This simple single step, would likely bring you from your limbic “fight or flight” brain, back to your rationale brain, which enables you to think about how you really feels, and how others really feel. The key to compassion.
To Close
Obviously, being compassionate does make you a more effective product manager, too. But lets not overlook the other benefits, your well-being and happiness.