Stefan
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I came across a podcast by Dave Stachowiak, who has helped define leadership through his work at Coaching for Leaders. As a recent subscriber to Dave’s podcast, I am extremely happy to have found it. I am not affiliated with Dave, and write this as my own opinion. The below is a reflection of my own perspective and opinion.
The podcast episode #94: What To Do When Managing Without Authority provides extremely useful insights into a wide range of topics, and one I recently listened to I felt I share through my blog. It deals with something I feel can be especially relevant for Product Managers: managing without direct authority. Note: this is not the topic around functional management (as in: managing engineers, or UX, which is simply not the way most PM orgs are structured to work), but instead this is about a frequent oddity in PM orgs: the fact that most organizations try to keep them flat, and raise the bar for managing other PM’s formally. This works, for a while, but it can get to the point where the product area needs a certain amount of coherence in PM decision making, but you are maybe not allowed to manage your fellow PM’s directly. What to do in this scenario? What if this causes friction in decision making, or it costs too much time to chase after product decisions made without your input? I found Dave’s take really useful, and encourage you to check out his podcast.
My key takeaways from Podcast are:
- The situation is not supposed to be like that. Managing someone without the accounted authority is not a situation you want to be in.
- You don’t want to be in the situation very long. Your biggest task is to find a way out of this situation, and get into a place where you either are not accountable anymore for another persons work, or become a formal authority for that individuals work (i.e. become their manager).
- Monitoring is key. Get clarity in the situation is essential. Really monitor what is going on, and pay special attention to the communication. Clarify whether this situation was intended, and whether there is a strategy behind this.
- Ask yourself whether authority is needed. Do you need this authority in this area? Also, did you just not clarify or notice the authority given?
- Frame the situation as a business issue, not a personality conflict. Managers and leaders are often much more comfortable to
While we don’t want to think this way, there is a lot of reasons why a situation like the one above described (managing a person without authority). This certainly include company politics, and managerial failure. The situation could also emerge due to what Dave calls ‘a discomfort area for the leader’.
Dave also encourages us to really watch and record what the result of authority not being given is. In a Product Management org, there could be multiple places where this shows negatively for the product, the customer, and the organization. Some examples I would consider monitoring:
- Did we often change our decisions? Changing decisions, or ambiguity around decisions can be incredibly detrimental to the success of the PM org. It is also the most costly and annoying thing to happen: going back and admitting you made a wrong call.
- Do Product Managers disagree with one another in leadership settings? Within reason, Product is supposed to be aligned. It is a clear signal of distress if multiple PM’s deliver multiple messages to leaders to different stakeholders. This needs to be flagged almost instantly, and can be a consequence of lack of direct managerial authority.
- Do we make good decisions? Quality of decisions as they affect the product and customers is crucial.
- Do we respect and leverage expertise? Often times the lack of direct authority can cause a shift in leverage of expertise. Due to the often competitive nature of the PM org itself (competing against resources), expertise needs to be aligned with authority.
Eventually, you will need to report the recorded issues with the lack of managerial authority. The best way to do so is to call to the attention of leadership the impact on ‘bottom line’ of your product. These issues for us PM’s are typically cost, time, and quality, but can extend to the goals of the relevant product area. The more our analysis is tied to the ‘core deliverable’ of the product, the stronger the case for leadership to do something differently. According to Dave, make sure you have crystallized what it is you want from your leaders. This includes the scenario you would be comfortable with, and a timeline / plan to realize this. Consider alternative outcomes. Especially in the Product Org, there is an implicit expectation around flexibility. It can be that your leaders are creative about achieving what you want, through a route that you might not have considered yourself.
