What communication skills are needed to get a promotion in product management?

Communication is like a product - it should solve a specific problem of my audience. Before any meeting or presentation: 👉 I put myself in the shoes of my audience to understand their expectations and reasons for attending - what they really want? 👉 If I'm not sure, I'll just ask the audience what they want to focus on before the meeting - simple as that. 👉 I also use the 'Jobs to Be Done' framework to figure out why people are coming to my meeting and what they want to get out of it. This principle doesn't just apply to meetings. For asynchronous communication, like on Slack, I use the same techniques.

Front load your message, make it scan-friendly & impactful. 1. Before writing, think about the main story you want your readers to remember. Limit the #of takeaways you want people to have. Don't try to communicate 15 points, rather focus on 2-3 main points 2. Provide clear & concise information. Instead of statements like "I made progress," explain the why, what, & what's next. For instance,"To achieve XX, we completed YY, and the next steps are ZZ" 3. Highlight Risks. Address them early, describe its importance, potential impact & whether there's a mitigation plan in place or a timeline for creating one 4. Focus on Output. Instead of "I did X," convey the impact:"By doing X, we achieved Y" or "Doing X will help us reach Y by XX date"

Tailor your message by understanding your audience, using frameworks like 'Jobs to Be Done', focus on 2-3 takeaways, and highlight risks early. Whether it's strategic vision or technical details, adapt your message for clarity and impact. Collaborate effectively, convey product value, and use persuasion to gain buy-in. Adapt your methods, practice active listening, and enhance your writing for impact. I personally, failed multiple times in communicating needs. Developers built something tangential. Leadership started looking me down. I see these worst scenarios in life consequential to poor communication, inhibiting my growth! Besides research we do, clarity we build, good intentions, communications is the game.

Distil complex information into clear, jargon-free messages. Whether it's a user story, spec, or email, prioritize simplicity and precision. Structure your communication logically, using headings and bullet points for coherence. Before hitting send, proofread and edit to ensure clarity. Clear, concise communication not only streamlines processes but establishes you as a leader who delivers actionable directives. Kill your darlings - remove frills and get straight to the point. Assume your audience knows nothing, avoid acronyms, use bullet points, and seek feedback for continuous improvement. Remember, clear & concise communication is your ticket to success. Write the way you speak, avoiding unnecessary jargon. Making simple is Experience!

Regardless if you are a Product manager or you are working in a different role, I would suggest to master effective communication as a primary skills. You should be clear, concise and able to convey your points in a meaningful way by matching the wavelength and speaking with the same terms with the audience you are communicating in your calls, meetings, emails or face to face interactions. This will not only help to shape you as a better leader but help you to influence, shape the direction and convince people. As a Product manager this is one of the pivotal skills to up the ladder and you should prioritize effective, clear and concise communication with your manager. Help them understand your day to day work so they can help you out!

When communicating it’s very important to remember to be clear and to fully describe whatever you want to say. Don’t make the mistake to believe that others will interpret things the way you expect, instead be clear and don’t leave any room for misunderstandings.

One of the most important & Underrated Skill is Empathy: Just listen to them carefully, you will get a lot of Pain, a lot of new insights & a lot of new stories even from developers.

Here are six best practices for being actively empathetic! Empathy in Action: Listening helps identify pain points & insights, fostering stronger relations. Active Listening Techniques: Paraphrasing, acknowledging emotions, & converting insights into opportunities. Enhancing User Experience: Prioritize users' lives through effective communication strategies. Strategies for Growth: Storytelling refinement, active listening, and clear articulation are pivotal for product managers. Listening Beyond Words: Directly asking for feedback and considering responses aids in refining products effectively. Strategic Questioning: Use questions to elicit valuable insights, actionable improvements. Parallely, Strive for Clarity and Build Trust!

This is IMHO the most important part of communication. Some useful technics ⚒️ that can help you during the meeting based on my experience: 1. At meetings, I make sure to give people time to think and prepare their own questions or feedback. This could be a few minutes of quiet time. 2. I also provide a place where they can write down their thoughts, like a shared document or a whiteboard. 3. When it's time to talk, I really listen and give clear answers. If someone's point turns into a task, I make sure it gets done. It's important that people see their input leads to action.

Product management is a highly political role, requiring a deep understanding of the goals and agendas of stakeholders at all levels. Adapting to the setting, needs, and wants of stakeholders, while keeping the company's goals and objectives in focus, is essential for effective communication and success. What helps me is keeping the company's goals and objectives in focus, this is essential for staying on track and making progress. The beauty of the job is that as Product managers we must be able to prioritize initiatives and make trade-offs, even when it is difficult.

Here are some best practices that need to be followed for effective communications: Green Thinking Hat: Encourage a mindset open to new ideas and approaches, fostering innovation in communication. Versatility in Modes: Switch seamlessly between verbal, visual, and textual communication modes, adjusting style and format accordingly. Visual Impact: Senior leaders prefer concise, big-picture visuals like diagrams that encapsulate crucial information. Customization is Key: Tailor communication for stakeholders using various channels like emails, face-to-face, meetings, calls, presentations, and chats. Product managers need to navigate diverse communication modes based on audience preference and purpose. Understand what suits your business.

Customize your communication based on audience, purpose and create a bucket for stakeholders to prioritize your communication. Based on different preferences you have to adapt to communicate on emails, face to face, meetings, calls, interviews, surveys, presentations, demos, chat messages, etc. Adapt your style based on audience, tools and platform to make it suitable and relevant to convey your message effectively!

Here are some best practices for building continuous improvement mindset! Continuous Improvement Loop: Product managers must not only communicate to inform or persuade but also actively seek and integrate feedback for learning and improvement. Diverse Feedback Channels: Feedback can be qualitative or quantitative, formal or informal, solicited or unsolicited, positive or negative. Acknowledge, Analyze, Act, Close the loop. Growth Mindset: Cultivate a growth mindset by continuously seeking feedback, incorporating valuable suggestions, and showcasing improvements in performance and product management. Consider Feedback as opportunity to improve your OKRs, KPIs, and Product Strategy Stack. Being open-minded, curious, and respectful helps

Growth in any role involves multiple skills- both hard skills and soft skills. Alongside, an important step to take is receiving continuous feedback from your stakeholders on the progress of your product and your goals. Incorporating this feedback and implementing it, and letting know your stakeholders of the actions you took and the result of it will help in receiving more valuable feedback. Accepting the feedback with no bias will help in getting more transparent and true feedback.

Incorporate a mentality of open and collaborative environment. Let everyone feel empower and provide feedback to create an inclusive and diverse product. As a PM looking for level up, solicit feedback from your manager, build trust with other leaders and gather their feedback on your performance. This will help to build a strong case for promotion. Continue to gather feedback on your product from users through qualitative and quantitative ways and prioritize it based on your product strategy. Curate those feedback and present the positive feedback as part of your performance review to show your product accomplishment and user satisfaction around your product. Improve on negative feedback and communicate with those parties with the outcomes!

Talk with your manager. Make sure they know you are actively working on this skill and get their feedback on how you are doing. Ask them to solicit feedback from other leaders as well to build awareness of your efforts so it's not solely on others recognising by chance.

Celebrate your successes with those that have helped you achieve them. Also elevate those around you by celebrating their achievements. Too often we focus on what is going wrong and not what is going well, celebrating wins fosters a culture of progression, friendly competitiveness and is energising for a team.

Always be prepared, stay informed about the latest trends in your industry, and continue to refine your communication skills. Being proactive in understanding and addressing the needs of your team and stakeholders will showcase your leadership and communication prowess, aiding in your career advancement.

Request your manager for competencies checklist required for the next level and start working based of the list if you are planning to work towards getting promoted. Make a list of skills you would like to target for your personal and perfessional growth and revisit the goals periodically. Also, being open about your expectations and clearing communicating the achievements in current role and documenting the value ($) added to the company will come in handy. If you have taken up some ad-hoc tasks, or worked on items that isn't part of your goal but still made a significant impact, add them to your achievements as well.

Use your product management skills to manage yourself and your career as a brand. Just like you promote the features of your product, keep tracking the skills you have garnered through the year, map the achievements along the year in a excel and quantify your achievements. Discuss this tracker with your decision makers during regular check-ins. Make sure to collect feedback from them and try to reflect and then incorporate the feedback to improve your performance further.

I would consider a top communication skill to get promoted is story telling. We have so many conversations, meetings, presentations, etc. its hard to stand out. Telling a story helps people remember when they have a million things on their mind. I've seen this first hand with a story I tell about why I love CallRail and impact to our customers...referencing a customer "Crocodile Dave." On a weekly basis if not more I hear people reference my Crocodile Dave story. It taught me the impact story telling and I try to incorporate it as much as possible.