Pragmatic Marketer Spring 2013

Since , Pragmatic Marketing has been privy to some interesting perspectives from our alumni and instructors.

• .
• !
• ;
• .
• Musings on Mortality: From Tolstoy to Primo Levi;

We are sharing some of those insights in the fall issue of Pragmatic Marketer. With topics including metrics, roadmapping, social media, working with analysts, market visits, big data and kanban, the issue holds something for The Innovation Issue August 14, Stop innovating for innovation's sake. The summer issue of Pragmatic Marketer shares tips, best practices and real-life examples to help you innovate the right way.

The Rockstar Issue May 15, The Spring issue of Pragmatic Marketer is packed with useful information to help you become, discover and mentor rock stars at your organizations.

• Times Two (Saturn Society Boxed Set)?
• Moons Curse.
• Kinky Sex Games for Couples.

Paul Young, Pragmatic Marketing instructor, leads the page issue with an article on the seven X-factor traits of product professionals. While some traits are inherent, others are not. The Communication Issue February 14, The inaugural issue of Pragmatic Marketer provides 40 pages of thought-provoking content to help you communicate with nearly everyone that you come in contact with on a day-to-day basis--from CEOs to customers to sales guys.

Each issue is dedicated to providing you actionable information, reliable expertise and tips and So if you find yourself feeling anxious, you are not alone. The good news is that, like most fears, this one can be overcome. There are two effective methods of overcoming the fear factor of public speaking: Join a group such as Toastmasters and force yourself to speak.

Also, become the subject-matter expert on your topic area and your confidence will skyrocket. Give candidates a situation, topic or scenario where they must ask for more funding. Have them work up a slide presentation that they might give to the executive team. A true rock star will jump at the chance to use his or her synthesis and pitch artist skills to demonstrate being the most skilled communicator in the candidate pool.

Being a solid executive debater is an X factor, because a rock star must be the strongest advocate for what is right for the market and for the product. Some may worry that using this skill is politically dangerous. But the more the product professional exercises this skill within limits , the more the executive team respects him or her. To develop your executive debater skills, first evaluate your situation. Will your executive team be receptive to being challenged? If not, you might be able to shift the dynamic with an upfront conversation about how you plan to provide stronger guidance and leadership—even if it means offering pushback.

Otherwise, recognize that not every company wants this from the product teams. Some companies want people to check their brains at the door and simply execute. If this is the situation you find yourself in, you may be at the wrong company. Next, look for opportunities to challenge team thinking and drive the right outcomes. How you debate will vary based on the personality and temperament of the team but, in general, remember to praise in public and criticize in private.

Also, recognize that moderation is key, so pick your battles wisely. No executive team wants to be pulled into a debate on every decision. Focus on the big decisions that matter. Ask the candidate to provide examples of when they challenged an executive team and the result.

One interesting way to phrase the question: Now tell me about a time when you did that and they overruled you, and why. Another way to test this skill is to assign candidates a presentation or analysis to perform, and then poke at their findings. Challenge them and force them to defend their conclusions, perhaps in a panel interview where the panelists toss questions to the candidate in a round-robin format. This method is intended to probe deeply, use the intelligence of the group and induce stress in the candidates, so you can see how they perform under pressure.

Great products do not come from the force of personality. They require the organization to work together toward that greatness. But inspiring others to action is not enough, especially if different parts of the organization are working at odds with one another. Unfortunately, consensus is often elusive. It has received a bad reputation recently, with many looking at it as the fluffy domain of management consultants.

But product professionals who are consensus builders can travel across an organization without being perceived as pushing an agenda. They can ask questions and receive honest and open answers because they have the street cred of the market. Other teams trust that they are looking out for the good of the product and not a specific department.

Pragmatic Marketer

These skills allow them to smooth out conflict among teams and get products to market faster, by redirecting energy that would otherwise be spent on internal strife. The best way to develop building consensus is to practice. Start by getting to know your organization better and understanding how departments are measured, such as quotas, net promoter scores or hitting dates. Where there are warring factions, bring them together to discuss. Do not choose sides in the conversation, but facilitate it and let them work through it on their own.

The consensus will stick better if they feel like they reached it, instead of you forcing it. Pose leading, open-ended questions, such as: Instead, ask for specific examples of Amy building consensus across the organization and how she did it. Someone familiar enough with a candidate to be a reference should be able to provide a few simple examples. The final X factor is intertwined with all others, and will amplify all the other skills rock stars bring to bear.

Empathy means understanding what people are going through, without actually having experienced it. When leaders fail to understand the situations of others, the tendency to make unreasonable demands skyrockets. Their credibility then decreases, their effectiveness drops and eventually they flame out and their products fail. Failing to empathize with people outside the organization, such as customers, is even more fatal to product success: You will not ask good questions at the best, and will make terrible choices at the worst.

Both routes lead to failure. One reason that empathy receives short shrift today is culture.

Another reason is that being empathetic takes time. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, empathy is wound into the entire product we deliver, whether we know it or not.

Join Our Conversation

Empathetic leaders budget the time to understand their peers. They know how other teams are measured, how the groups they work with spend their time and when a request is reasonable or not. As a result, the empathetic rock star is able to intercept, redirect and reframe executive action items that could derail the team.

• Baby, Come Over (This Is Our Night).
• !
• Pragmatic Marketer - The Product Management and Marketing Authority - Issue Archive.

Empathetic rock stars also understand that their prior industry knowledge may not be applicable to every situation, and they seek to fully understand the market. The result is products that are created faster and solve problems more completely. Think about how they are measured and then ask them open-ended questions to understand their lives:. Next, think about the last five things you asked for from them, and how they align with what you just learned.

Pragmatic Marketer, Spring — Applied Frameworks

You will probably discover that you were the cause of some stress. Consider how what you asked might have changed if you knew this data beforehand. Would you have asked for a different timeframe or in a different way? Would you have asked at all? Being empathetic is not about being soft or not caring about results.

The opposite is true: Strong empathy can create better trust, communications and results when used correctly. Evaluating empathy is actually one of the simpler X factors to test. Run candidates through a battery of questions about their last or current roles, and ask them to identify how the different groups at the company were measured.

Drill down for details.

A strongly empathetic leader will know these measurements quickly, and be able to talk about if they were good or bad. Ask follow-up questions such as: How did that measurement change the way you worked with that group? This will help determine if they made good use of their empathy to change how they worked across the organization. Think about how you personally interact with the data you collect and the people you come in contact with.

Are you inspiring others, speaking the truth to power, synthesizing data and building consensus?

The X Factors

Are you being empathetic, while also being willing to debate executives? Some are born effective. But the demand is much too great to be satisfied by extraordinary talent. Effectiveness is a discipline. And, like every discipline, effectiveness can be learned and must be earned. While some of the X-factor skills might already be present, the others can be learned.

Take the steps outlined in this article to become a rock star and launch your career to new heights. He also manages the instructor team. Paul began his career as a software developer and has worked in startups and large companies across B2B and B2C industries, including telecommunications and networking, IT and professional services, consumer electronics and enterprise software. Reach him at pyoung pragmaticmarketing.