For the past 5 years, much of my leisure readings, online courses, and learnings have been less about designing software, building product, and working with agile teams, and more about babies sleeping through the night, toddlers pooping, dealing with tantrums, and in general how to survive as a parent. As I reflect on this experience, I can genuinely say that my growth as a product leader did not take a back seat during these years but was actually reinforced as I became a mother.
Becoming a parent greatly expanded my range of empathy. While this is a vital characteristic for product managers, up until this point I had never really had to empathize with a baby or toddler. I mean, how many of us remember what it was like to be one or two? Developing empathy to this degree, changed my overall level of compassion and patience for my colleagues. Although we may not be actually dealing with toddlers on a day to day (or maybe we are), we are all human and have similar needs for respect, compassion, and care.
Here are 10 things I’ve learned through my journey as a mom that are also applicable to the product management role. Although this is from the perspective of product management, these can be relevant for anyone in a leadership role.
1. Experiment and build incrementally
No number of parenting books, podcasts, and courses could have fully prepared me for the challenges I would face as a parent. After my first daughter was born, I quickly learned to accept that I could not be a perfect parent. The best thing we could do was to iterate and experiment as the new norm; building a little each day upon what was previously built. And sometimes we had to start over after what we may have previously built didn’t work.
No baby or product is complete at birth or inception. They start scooting before crawling, walking before running. It’s very rare for any product to be done in its first release, neither is this something that should be expected or strived. You wouldn’t expect a kid to become a professional musician after one piano lesson. There’s a well-known quote -
“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” - Reid Hoffman
To me this does NOT mean that you should rush to launch a product, but rather, you should NOT aim to build a product that you believe to be perfect or done before launching. It’s important to ship small increments of value frequently, so you gather more information on how your customers respond to and use every aspect of your product.
Babies don’t start speaking full sentences from the beginning. They start communicating through gestures and sounds, then words and phrases, before stringing everything together. Every step of the way, they are taking in information about how you respond and react (whether it’s confusion, frustration, surprise, or praise), and they are using these bits of information to figure out their next iteration.
2. Be consistent
I remember being asked while pregnant, ”Who’s going to be the nice parent and who’s going to be the mean one?” And I would respond saying it’s likely I’ll be the strict one. However my partner and I later learned, having different behavior and emotional approaches from different caretakers, like “good cop, bad cop” doesn’t work. It’s very confusing. It’s important there’s alignment across everyone on the approach. This helps children understand how things work and what they can expect from the parents, which brings calm to the chaos.
This concept is very relevant to product teams. Here’s an example - Someone in Customer Success (CS) approaches the PM with an issue and requests that it be prioritized, you may respond by telling them you’ll review with the team at the next refinement meeting. What if that person had approached an engineer with the same request and the engineer immediately started working on the ticket? That communicates to CS that if you go to an engineer, their issue is more likely to be worked on or if you make enough noise, your request will be prioritized. Align with your teams on your approach so that other teams understand and know exactly what to expect from you. This can go beyond individual teams to approaches as product teams. What approaches can product teams take to be more consistent?
3. Release control and enable others to act
Many toddlers have a very strong urge to act independently. I believe kids are evolutionarily curious and driven to assert themselves so that they can learn fast and as much as possible to survive. This phase can be frustrating. Sometimes it may take them 20 minutes to put on a shoe. Or they want to help bake cookies only to help make a bigger mess. Most of the time, it’s quicker and more convenient to do these things yourself. Not to mention, do things the way you want it done. But this only hinders their growth and reliance on you in the long run. In my journey as a parent, I’ve had to learn to release control, allowing my children to do things despite how messy or time-consuming it may be. I started seeking opportunities for them to help, even if it meant slowing me down in the beginning.
This is something that I’ve also worked on in my role as a PM. When thinking about any task, I started asking myself, “Is this something that I should do myself? Can someone help and can this be a learning opportunity for someone?” When asked to make a decision, I also started asking back “What would you do? What are the options and which would you try?”
This is not about offloading work to others and washing hands from responsibilities. It’s about enabling others to think independently and fostering a culture of critical thinking, ownership, and trust. If you enable others to act on their own initiative, they’re more likely to produce extraordinary results for the team, or learn to put on their own shoes.
Another enablement technique is to provide choices when it comes to decision making. Simply announcing “it’s time for bed” may set off a tantrum because children (and people) have a natural desire to be in charge. Rather than fighting against this desire, try going with it. “It’s time for bed. Would you like mom to help you get into bed or do you want to get in yourself?” When you allow them to experience some control, they’re more likely to feel a part of the team. This could come in handy with stakeholders requesting prioritization of a feature.
4. Give recognition by focusing on the effort, rather than the outcome
As a parent, I developed a habit of saying “good job” as a blanket statement of praise, because of course, I wanted my kids to feel good about their accomplishments. One day, after I absent-mindedly said “good job” to my daughter, she asked “why?” Which got me thinking about whether my reaction actually served the intended purpose of making her feel good. Despite good intentions, researchers are cautioning that praising children is counterproductive to building children’s self-esteem. To build self-esteem, children must practice cultivating their own positive feelings from within.
A way to do this is to focus on the effort, rather than the outcome. When we are able to help them reflect on their actions, efforts, and accomplishments and help them evaluate whether they've achieved their own objectives, they learn to decide for themselves how they feel about their outcome. Focusing on the efforts, for example, may sound like “You’ve been practicing that song every week for a couple months. It sounds like you’ve really mastered it.” A generalized statement that doesn’t give any specific details about the effort made or the qualities someone possesses may not go very far in building them up.
Sometimes a simple observation about what the person did may be better than a blanket “good job.” It shows that you’ve been paying attention to the effort. If you do not work closely with them, it could also be an opportunity for you to ask about the experience and effort that they put in. Some examples, “What was the hardest part about doing this?” or “How did you come up with this idea?”
5. Validate the emotion
Think back to the last time you may have seen a child fall or hurt themselves playing. What did you or other adults around say to them? Do you remember yourself or anyone saying some version of “it’s OK” or “you’re OK!” to them? I remember these words clearly growing up. I hated it, but yet I fell into the same habit of saying it to my own kids. More recently I learned exactly why I didn’t like it. It’s a dismissive, empty phrase and failure of empathy. It directly contradicts their experience. Imagine if you recently experienced hardship and you went to your manager and they said “you’re ok!” It probably wouldn’t feel good.
Saying “it’s OK” is often about quieting the show of emotion so that we can stop feeling uncomfortable. It prioritizes our need over the person’s need for help to deal with their negative feelings. It also communicates that we should fear or avoid strong emotions, because people around them see them as a problem. What can we do instead? People need to feel that their emotions matter and that others hear what they’re saying. Validation makes us feel accepted. Emotional validation includes listening, acknowledging what has happened, or rephrasing what the person is saying. To a kid who just fell, that may sound like “I saw you fell hard on the ground, are you hurt? Do you need a hug?” To a colleague that may sound like “I see that you’re upset. There’s a lot going on, do you want to talk about this?”
6. Highlight the yes
On the related tune of empathy, rejection and being told “no” can have similar effects on someone’s emotions if it’s dismissive. Hearing “no” again and again as a toddler is no fun. Adults don’t like it either. As PMs we work with limited resources and competing priorities and end up having to say “no” to many stakeholders. This is never easy but it’s something we can get better at doing. Learning how to do this better can not only save relationships, but can also help build them. The next time you’re ready to deny or disagree with a request, try a Yes-No sandwich or “Yes, but not right now” approach.
Here’s what a response to my daughter who wants to spend some time with a friend may sound like “Sounds like you want to play with your friend. You haven’t seen her in a while. You always have a lot of fun with her! We have school today though. Let me call your friend’s mom and see if we can play this weekend.” Essentially this is a “no” but sandwiched between two “yes” responses. A very similar approach can be used with a colleague. “Thanks for bringing this up. Our team has talked about how big this would be for customers. Right now we’re working on a high priority feature to unblock a lot of merchants. This is a great idea to revisit in the future.”
7. Focus on what will deliver the highest impact
What comes to mind when you think about household responsibilities?
What about remembering and planning birthdays (not just your own kids’, but their friends', your friends', your relatives', and their kids'), planning groceries to buy, setting up playdates, writing thank you notes, buying gifts, remembering when school is closed, planning for backup child care, registering for school and extracurriculars, remembering where things are in the house? These are all examples of unseen tasks and obligations that are often forgotten or taken for granted for primary caretakers, and unfortunately often fall on the backs of women. It’s called invisible labor.
When I think about the role of PMs, which is about setting the context and empowering teams, there’s also a lot of invisible labor, or intangible tasks, that comes to mind. As we touched on early, some ways to overcome this can be about increasing enablement to empower others to act. Another way is to focus on what will deliver the highest impact. When I was working on how to overcome perfectionism, I learned about the 80/200 rule. I have a sticky note next to my computer as a reminder to ask myself “Is this a 80% or 200% thing?” whenever I’m about to approach anything, whether it be a personal or work task. It’s impossible and unhealthy to do everything perfectly, so this is a reminder to focus on what will deliver the highest impact. Is 80% of my effort for this task acceptable or does this require 200%? If any of the 80% things are important enough, you may have more people around you stepping in to help cover those gaps. Doing this has helped me set limits for myself, live with mistakes, do more meaningful work, but most importantly, improve my mental health.
8. Inject curiosity
Let’s be real, leading is stressful, whether it’s at home or at work. With the infinite number of things to do, consider, or be responsible for, this can create a lot of anxiety. Dr. Jed Brewer, author of Unwinding Anxiety, explains that anxiety is a habit and one way to overcome anxiety is to understand how our mind works. As we start worrying, it can get reinforced in our brain because it makes us feel like we’re in control or doing something about it. The irony of this is that worrying actually makes it harder to think and plan. We are less effective thinkers when we are anxious.
Curiosity, on the other hand, not only feels better than anxiety, it is also intrinsically different. Anxiety feels closed down, while curiosity feels open. Curiosity activates the same reward centers of the brain that fire when we learn or accomplish a goal. This means it can give you a dopamine boost that can counter feelings of anxiety. One way to beat anxiety is to practice “injecting curiosity” whenever you have closed feelings of anxiety. For example, if you start to feel anxious, you can ask yourself questions like “OK, where do I feel this anxiety? Is it in my chest or stomach? Right or left side? Do other people feel this the same way? What’s interesting about this moment?” The answer doesn’t matter. It’s not about distracting yourself from the issue, but about being present, curious in the moment, and exploring the sensations of the experience.
9. Always start with the why
What do 4 year olds, product managers, and Backstreet Boys have in common?
They want people to tell them why. :)
Not only should we be asking why but, according to Simon Sinek, we should start with the “why.”
Using this “Golden Circle” he talks about how every single person in your organization knows “what” they do. Only some know “how” they do it. Even fewer people know “why” they do it. By “why,” he doesn’t mean make a profit, which is a result. He means “what’s the cause or belief?” Most people go from out to in, the “what” to the “why,” but inspired leaders go from the inside out.
Take one of his great examples. This is what the marketing messaging sounds like for Apple going inwards. The “what” is “We make good computers.” The “how” is “They are beautifully designed and user friendly.” Would you buy their products?
What if you heard the “why” and then went back outwards, “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed and user friendly. We just happen to make good computers.” And this is why people want to buy Apple products.
The Golden Circle also happens to look like the brain where the outermost area, the neocortex, is responsible for rational and analytical thinking and language. The inner areas, the limbic brain, is associated with our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It’s also responsible for human behavior and decision making.
Interestingly with children, the part of the brain that’s associated with rational thinking isn’t fully developed until later in life in their mid 20s. Unlike adults, they process information with the part of the brain that’s associated with emotion.
When you communicate from out to in, people can understand lots of information, like features and benefits, but it doesn’t drive behavior. If you don’t know why you are doing the things you do, how can you get anyone to buy from you, advocate for you, or be loyal? When we talk from the inside out, we are talking directly to the part of the brain that drives feeling and behavior.
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.” - Simon Sinek
10. Lean into the community
As a new mother, it was easy to slip into darkness and solitude. For what seemed like eternity, I lost the concept of time as days and nights blurred together. It was easy to get caught up in the glorious depictions of perfect motherhood everywhere. When I was a new mom, no one in my social circle had kids and we had no family or support system. Reaching out to parent strangers was the last thing I wanted to do. As my head started coming out from underwater, I joined a Facebook support group of local moms. I stumbled upon threads and threads of parenting gold nuggets; answers to questions and problems that I had just gone through and a flood of connections to resources. If I had taken just a minute to dip into the community, it would have saved me countless hours, days, and weeks of heartbreak and desperation.
The pandemic has separated us more than ever. It is so easy to fall into silos, but we cannot tackle problems alone. You may be the primary person responsible for a product or problem in your domain, but there could be many PMs that have solved similar problems or even luckier, PMs who have led your product before, who are only a video chat away. At BigCommerce, I made an effort to connect with most PMs in the company. I was able to identify PMs in adjacent areas with shared interests and challenges. I met PMs who were interested in observing similar metrics or solving similar problems. If you ever start feeling alone in a challenge, believe me when I say, as polished as other PMs may seem, they may not have it all figured out either. Product Management is already a challenging role as is. Leverage and partner with other PMs, within your company and beyond. I was fortunate to have a diverse team of PMs coming from all backgrounds at BigCommerce. Lean into the community not for yourself, but also for the product.
These are 10 learnings as a parent that I’ve found valuable in my role as a PM. I hope that you’ll be able to leverage some of these. I encourage you to pick one of these ten that may feel a little more foreign to you and practice it this week.
2018 BigCommerce Product & Engineering Summit
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