Stakeholder Control
Read on my website / Read time: 5 minutes
Thank you to our sponsors who keep this newsletter free for the reader:
Want to Get In Front of 6K+ Decision Makers?
Promote your product or brand to a passionate community of product leaders and innovators for one flat fee. No CPC, CPI, or CPM.
|
Stakeholders with control issues.
Let's be honest: They're so infuriating.
They think they own the product.
They think they're "customers" of the product.
So, they think the product should do whatever they think it should.
They think their priorities are the only priorities that matter.
Control freaks.
This is pretty typically with an "internal" product, where the users are internal within the company.
But it can also happen with external, true customer-facing products.
For example, a company with a divisional organizational structure:
Years ago, I joined a company where Product Management was new. They hired a Director - who, fun fact, had no previous PM experience - to lead the team.
The PM Director reported to the VP of Marketing, who, in turn, reported to the SVP of Client Services and Business Development - the GM of the core business. The SVP reported to the CEO.
(If your eyebrows are rising at this reporting structure, you might be picking up what I'm putting down.)
The organization was primarily organized along its client accounts, who were major retailers. Each account was led by a Business Director, who reported directly to the SVP.
So, there was a business director for the OfficeMax account, one for B&H Photo, one for JC Penney, one for Best Buy (big $$), one for Amazon, one for Walmart (very big $$$), etc.
Each line of business (LOB) had their own customer success team, implementation team, project managers, etc. Admin functions, like legal, HR, and finance, as well as call center operations and IT, were centralized, each led by an executive who reported to the CEO.
Most importantly, each business director had their own P&L. Which means each LOB paid proportionally into the product development budget.
Can you see where this is going?
The bigger LOBs paid more. Naturally, they felt entitled to control more of what Product Management did.
That meant that the Walmart business director wanted his stuff to be prioritized at the top, always, and didn't care whether it benefited any of the other LOBs.
In fact, the bigger LOBs even demanded they have their own dedicated product manager, focused exclusively on their client.
There was precedent for this. Each LOB had a dedicated Client Implementation Manager and Business Operations Manager. The BOMs reported directly to their BD. The CIMs reported to a VP of Client Implementation, who reported to the SVP.
The result was a grind for our team. We never got any real traction. Our the Director (my boss) was eventually let go.
He was replaced with a PM leader who had the key missing ingredient:
He was politically astute.
He built strong relationships with each BD, especially the bigger LOBs. He not only understood how each LOB was run, but also got to know each BD's personality and what drove them professionally and personally.
A genius move was to build a strong relationship with the VP of Client Implementation.
Through a long track record of delivery, she had a well-respected voice among the BDs and the C-suite.
From her, he learned how she thought about resourcing the LOBs with her CIMs, and how she handled each BD.
Over time, she became one of the strongest supporters and advocates for our team.
One of the best things our PM leader did - and had me do - was form a direct relationship with the SVP. As he - and we - earned the SVP's respect, that SVP began to give us more support and air cover if, say, the Walmart BD got a bit too territorial.
As a product manager, I learned a lot from him. He taught me how to use the business knowledge and political skills to position our product plans and roadmaps to these stakeholders in ways that brought them on board.
Of course, in the midst of all this, we had to execute like hell. Nothing breeds credibility like a track record of delivery!
Lessons Learned
To be successful in that organization, I had to learn skills I hadn't been taught anywhere else.
My MBA hadn't taught me these skills.
My experience in entrepreneurship hadn't taught me these skills.
My startup experience hadn't taught me these skills.
My technical background was useless in this circumstance.
And being successful in that organization was well beyond waterfall, agile, or any particular development methodology.
I learned that success in product management boiled down to 2 key skills:
- Business acumen.
- Emotional intelligence.
I was lucky to have the right mentor at the right time.
As a product manager or product leader, being in this kind of situation is difficult.
The main issue is the need for control.
Fighting for control is difficult. If you don't directly control P&L, budget, key resources, or a mission critical operation, it's a losing battle.
So, if you find yourself in such a situation, here's what you can do:
1. Understand what's driving the need to control.
It's typically one of these:
- An incentive - How are they evaluated? What are they held accountable for?
- A fear - "If I give up control, I can't hit my goals."
- An insecurity - "My role/value/influence/ability to rise will be diminished if I give this up."
Sometimes all of these.
2. Understand their goals.
In my story, the BDs' goals were to (1) retain and grow the client relationship, and (2) hit their annual P&L growth number.
Having cool tech, agile vs waterfall, fancy prioritization templates, systems thinking, design thinking - none of that stuff mattered to them.
3. Get to know them as people.
Form a relationship with them. You don't have to become best friends. But understanding their personalities, get to know them as people, and how best to communicate with them. This will go a long way.
4. Reframe communications in their language.
In my example above, it meant understanding each BD's business and communicating our plans and proposals in a way that showed how they would benefit the BD's business and client.
Doing it this way gave them a certain sense of control (they felt involved) without us coming across as threatening.
5. Execute. Execute. Execute.
In particular, deliver results that matter. As I said, nothing breeds credibility like a track record of delivery.
In my example above, it wasn't just about delivering on time and on budget. It was about demonstrating impact to the BD's P&L and client relationship.
So whatever plans you communicate, make sure you deliver on them!
Gaining credibility and trust is harder in the beginning. As you develop a track record of delivery, you'll be granted more forgiveness over time. (Never take this for granted, though.)
Master Stakeholder Management
If aligning stakeholders - including the control freaks - is a challenge you've faced, consider joining the next cohort for my masterclass, One Week Product Roadmap.
The truth is roadmapping is the one master skill that brings together a combination of other skills crucial to being successful in product management, including managing stakeholders. PMs who learn how to do it right 10x their impact.
