Loneliness is a thing when being a Product Manager 🥺

A lot of folks wonder what is hard about Product Management. The complexity, the ambiguity, the leadership without authority? But how about the loneliness that comes from being at the center of responsibility? My take is that loneliness is one of the most overlooked aspects which make being a PM difficult, and sometimes outright horrible.

Loneliness is a key factor in well-being for Product Managers

Since I have been a PM, I rarely felt alone in a sense of isolation. I was always part of a highly talented functional team, embedded in an organization, with stockholders and folks truly vested into what I was working on. I also can look back on extremely valuable conversations with customers and clients, as well as consumers, during my time as a PM lead building products in the B2B and B2C space. But something is still making me feel lonely more often than would be healthy, I guess.

Eve since I was little I could ‘occupy myself’ as my parents proudly told visitors and family friends. They looked at me and said: “He is so good at occupying himself!” And it was true. I would often just go around, look at things, and start creating something that I had seen or heard. One day my aunt came and visited us with a new laundry bag system. She brought it from abroad as a present, and it was special. I looked at the bag and cried out that I would put it together right away. My mum disagreed. She said that I might break it, and that we wouldn’t do it right now. After the adults sat down for dinner, I silently snuck away and grabbed the thing, and locked myself in the bathroom (the only room one could lock in our house at the time). Then, with my peace and quiet, I started putting the system together. Once done, I went and proudly proclaimed that I had done it! It was built! My mum looked at this whole episode and to this day remembers it. She said it changed her approach in dealing with me, and she shouldn’t hold back a challenge from me (unless it was dangerous) anymore from there on out.

Not controlling all factors influencing the outcome but having all the responsibility is systematic to the PM role

While I was proud of the accomplishment, it was a lonely achievement. Now things are different. I am working with some of the smartest individuals out there on some of the biggest problems known. My drive for taking ownership still stands, just like it did with that laundry bag system. While the absolute stakes are much much higher in my job Today, relatively speaking I might have been more scared from failure when I was a 10 year old building the laundry bag system. Had I failed, the consequences within my little universe at the time seemed catastrophic. It is a big burden to be responsible for such an outcome, while not controlling all factors which might contribute to the possible outcome. Every leader knows this, but it is more systematic to the PM role than to other roles.

So let’s fast forward to Google, and the Product Manager role. Most of the time I am happy to share my thinking, but there are situations where I feel that all eyes are on me to make a call. It is in those moments that I feel most lonely. They take me back to my childhood days when I was alone in that bathroom, working away at that laundry bag system. Having said that, these moments are shorter and shorter now. I am aware now that I am always surrounded by folks who are working on the same goal. And in this world, the question is not: How do I answer this complex question? but instead: How do I create incentives which enable the team to collaborate on tough decisions? So, my true insight is that loneliness is a signal for a lack of incentives to ensure a team can come together and collaborate on a complex problem. Now, whenever I feel lonely, I simply ask myself: Am I doing enough to support my team?

Now, loneliness is a signal to ask whether I can do more for my team

Doing more for the team is a broad area, but here are some of my favorites:

• Make the situation fun, and bring more humor into the challenge. This is simple, but is consistently one of the most powerful tools I can use to break the tension. When something seems super tricky, take a moment and try and see beyond it. One day, you will look back and smile, is not just a sentence, but a way of life
  
• Ask folks how they feel about the situation, and truly hear them out. Sometimes we forget that in weekly 30-minute team meetings it is hard to share true feelings about a situation. Take the time, ask how folks are doing, and take time to listen. Maybe the fact that they know someone cares is helping, if only a little.
  
• Take time to give thoughtful and relevant feedback. I like the ‘this is what I observe, this is how it made me feel, this is what I recommend’ way of giving feedback. Positively framed feedback is a great motivator, and can help let folks know that you see them on a strong trajectory, and give them the boost they need to go through a valley they might feel stuck in.
  
• Acknowledge the challenges. This is one of the most powerful moves I found. Just to say, honestly, that things are hard, is an important way to release tension and calibrate the team. I was often surprised how high people set the bar for themselves, and sometimes that can cause a ton of pressure. Knowing that the situation is difficult can help re-calibrate.
  
• Provide time & air-cover. Share the situation with leads, or even leads from other groups, can help give more time and air cover for the team to resolve a difficult situation.

These are some of the tips that worked for me, and I hope you find them useful. These are things I do when I start feeling lonely, and so far so good, they keep helping me with the work related loneliness. Let me know if you have any tips and advice for us in the comments.

Take Action 🎬

📅 Book a private coaching session with me to grow your PM career. I will share my 15+ years of experience as a Product Manager, all my learning and pitfalls, with actionable tips and concrete lessons to model after.

📚 The book How to Talk to Anyone helped me build trust with individuals quickly when I needed to. It is a bit of a ‘guide to sure fire icebreakers’, applicable in any situation. Trust is the number one path to more objective information, especially so when the odds are stacked against you.

📚 To learn about the growth mindset, read Mindset, by Carol Dweck. The book is a foundational shift in how we perceive the development of motivation, and skills. It provides practical approaches you can apply every day with your team to increase their performance.