Episode 124: How Integral Are Tough Skills For the Development of Product Managers?

In this episode of Product Thinking, Melissa Perri talks with Glen Stoffel and Caryn Fried, the Co-Founders of Camp4. They talk all about tough skills for product managers such as emotional intelligence; how to deal with stakeholders; how to communicate with the rest of your team; as well as some great facilitation techniques so that you can get the work done! Both Glen and Caryn are the Co-Founders of Camp4, an organization bringing together the world’s leading sales practitioners to advise and accelerate the growth of the next generation of Salesforce innovators. Glen is also the Co-Founder of Think it Done, and previously held leadership roles at Bluewolf, an IBM company. Caryn is both the Co-Founder and CEO at Camp4, and Co-Founded Think it Done with Glen before leaving in 2020. The two have worked together closely for years and we can’t wait for you to hear their stories and gain some super actionable insights into product management and team facilitation.

Both Glen and Caryn are the Co-Founders of Camp4, an organization bringing together the world’s leading sales practitioners to advise and accelerate the growth of the next generation of Salesforce innovators. Glen is also the Co-Founder of Think it Done, and previously held leadership roles at Bluewolf, an IBM company. Caryn is both the Co-Founder and CEO at Camp4, and Co-Founded Think it Done with Glen before leaving in 2020.

The two have worked together closely for years and we can’t wait for you to hear their stories and gain some super actionable insights into product management and team facilitation.

You’ll hear Glen and Caryn talk about:

Tough skills are absolutely essential for the success of sales and running products. Glen says that what really differentiated people during the training process for running products was how they operated once they got in the room. How were they interacting with stakeholders? What skills were they putting forward? How easily and effectively could they influence people to get things done?
Some people really struggle with soft skills, however Glen and Caryn prefer to call them ‘tough skills’. With so many technological platforms available to make us quicker and more efficient, there is a massive gap in the process: the human side. As soon as you involve actual people in whatever sales or product management process you have, that’s when tough skills need to show up. You need to figure out how to help those on your team align, agree, collaborate, be critical thinkers and be empathetic, amongst various other skills.
The one thing that a lot of businesses aren’t investing enough time in is facilitation. Oftentimes, strong product people have great visions and immovable opinions; they can see where the dots connect and have a great vision for how their customer and employees’ experience is going to work, but they can get caught in the trap of control, rather than collaboration. If you’re an executive in an organization, it’s your collaborative skills that are the most important part of getting your ideas across.
Your team doesn’t have to agree on the end solution, but if you can get them to agree and align on how they’re going to get there, then that’s how you make sure it’s done in their language. Try taking a brainstorming approach to things with them, get a bunch of ideas together and figure out a way to get them all to mesh in a strategic way.
When dealing with someone who’s a little more hostile to the end goal and is more focused on their own goals, you have to take some extra time to try and build a bridge with that person; don’t just jump to an impulsive anger, it’s all about navigating a personality.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Resources:

Glenn on LinkedIn

Caryn on LinkedIn

Camp4

If you enjoyed this episode, please visit:

Previous guests include: Shruti Patel of US Bank, Steve Wilson of Contrast Security, Bethany Lyons of KAWA Analytics, Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann of Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue of Doodle, Jason Fried of 37signals, Hubert Palan of Productboard, Blake Samic of Stripe and Uber, Quincy Hunte of Amazon Web Services

Check out our Top 3 episodes:

Product Thinking is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Product Thinking Guest and Audience Podcast Feedback Form