PMM leaders thrive when they lead a high-impact, innovative, and happy team. Everything’s clicking.Everyone is doing great stuff.The company sees it and calls it out. I was on teams like that 5 times in 21 years as an employee.In 7 years of coaching, I’ve seen it another 2 times. It’s rare. Each high-performing team had great … Continue reading Design a Great PMM Team
Tag: leadership
Growth Signals
Last week, a PMM made me smile from ear to ear. We’ve been working on impact using emotion and point of view. Our first work – a year ago – was on a presentation to the CEO & exec team. She’d prepared 17 well-reasoned, objective, detailed slides.All facts, no emotions, no point of view. We … Continue reading Growth Signals
Put Social Conflict to Work
When we hear the word ‘conflict’ we think of wars and attacks.We think of loud verbal arguments.But assault and loud arguments are just extreme types of conflict.Those are counter-productive at work.Don’t do them. But there is a productive type of conflict: social conflict.Social conflict helps groups of humans perform better. Embrace social conflict:Ask for advice or help.Ask … Continue reading Put Social Conflict to Work
Leadership & Behavioral Alloys
Recently, I’ve spent an unusual amount of time interviewing candidates for CMO and VP of product marketing roles. Beyond my standard approach to interviewing PMMs, when I interview people for leadership roles, I look for specific combinations of behaviors – what I call behavioral alloys. Curiosity & thoughtfulnessPeople motivated by curiosity outperform those motivated by … Continue reading Leadership & Behavioral Alloys
Get Your Way without Being an Asshole: 5 Good Behaviors & 5 Bad Ones
The PMMs I coach want to grow their impact on the business, and they have ideas that they want to get their way on – but most of them say they're worried about being perceived as assholes. Getting Your Way vs. Being an Asshole Getting your way requires you to lead & get support from … Continue reading Get Your Way without Being an Asshole: 5 Good Behaviors & 5 Bad Ones
Stop Apologizing
I assume you have an idea or two about how to make your company grow better. (Now is a good time to tell people that idea)But to persuade humans to change, you need to speak with impact. Here's one mistake I see PMMs making, one that is easy to fix: “I have an idea, but you’ve … Continue reading Stop Apologizing
“Executive Presence” Means Nothing (Sentence Carving 101)
2 PMM leaders that I coach recently got performance reviews. Both were told they need to work on executive presence.This is a useless piece of feedback. Because no one can say what it means. What’s Really Going On? They’re really saying you don’t speak with impact.For impact, there’s one behavior that makes the biggest difference.How you carve … Continue reading “Executive Presence” Means Nothing (Sentence Carving 101)
Product Marketing Best Practices 