Product Managers, Stop Defending Your Product

Sometimes I think a product manager’s job could be more accurately described as Manager of Conundrums.As a product manager you’ll need to build and direct a team across many departments, but usually without the authority to tell any of those people what to do. You’ll need to create a sense of camaraderie among your team, and to give them a sense of ownership in the outcome, but you’ll also often need to say “No” to their requests and suggestions. And you’ll need to focus on your product’s high-level strategic plan but at the same time keep an eye on the details to make sure the team is executing according to that plan.This is why we’ve argued previously on this blog that effective product management almost always comes down to a delicate balancing act.But perhaps the most difficult conundrum you’ll have to manage is this one: As a product manager, you will need to advocate continually for your product — from that first strategic meeting where you present your roadmap to company stakeholders, all the way through release day. You’ll need to be its biggest fan to make sure it gets built according to your strategic plan. And yet, if that product receives a lackluster response from the market, or complaints from users, your role won’t be to defend it — something a fan would be inclined to do — but rather to process the disappointing feedback with cold, detached objectivity.

2 Flawed Ways That Product Managers React to Negative Feedback (and What They Have in Common)

1. The “They just don’t get it” reaction.

Imagine this: A software product manager shepherds a new data-analytics application through development and releases it to the market. After discussing the product with a few key early adopters, she hears a theme developing. Several of them say they were hoping for a certain feature and were surprised to find it missing from the product.Now imagine the PM responds, “We didn’t build in that functionality because analysts don’t work that way.”What’s happened here, clearly, is that the product manager has missed a key element of how her users get their work done. But when she learns that important fact from her product’s early adopters, our hypothetical product manager sounds defensive. And remember: This PM is talking to an actual analyst. Is she really in a position to tell this user that “analysts don’t work that way”?

The Right Way to Handle This Situation

In this situation, when she hears this negative feedback, the PM’s reaction should not be to get defensive, but to listen.After hearing out her early users, the product manager might determine the feature is an absolute Priority 1 must-have, and rocket it up the priority list on the product roadmap.She might also determine after having these discussions that the feature is merely a nice-to-have, or even that the functionality the analysts are asking for is actually already built into the product — and that her priority now is simply to improve the user experience by moving that functionality to a more logical and intuitive spot in the workflow.

2. The “He’s right — this product sucks” reaction.

The other way a product manager can react incorrectly to negative feedback is to go in the opposite direction — rather than getting defensive about the product, simply throwing up his hands and giving up on it altogether.This is the more insidious of the two reactions, because when he takes this path the product manager can fool himself into believing he’s being objective. After all, the PM was a fierce advocate for the product every day until its GA release. And as the first few comments from underwhelmed users roll in, he’s now acknowledging the whole thing might just need to be scrapped.But this isn’t being objective any more than a product manager instinctively defending a product against a user’s complaint is being objective.Both of these approaches are based not on data, or objectively processing feedback, but rather on emotion. And that’s the problem.

The Right Way to Handle This Situation

When a product manager receives negative feedback from his users, the correct response will not be to immediately agree with that feedback and use it as proof that the product (or some aspect of it) is fatally flawed.The right way to handle this situation will be the same as it is in the previous example: Take the feedback in, listen to it carefully and without emotion, ask intelligent questions that might help flesh out the problem, and then decide what if any action to take.

Bottom Line: How a Product Manager Should React Negative Feedback

The last thing you want affecting your reaction to negative product feedback is your own negative emotion. And that means a negative emotion in either direction — frustration and defensiveness toward your users for “just not getting” your product’s greatness, or depression and resignation because you immediately assume the feedback is proof “your product sucks.”Indeed, the only emotion you should have when hearing and processing negative feedback is gratitude — gratitude that you’re receiving real-world feedback that will help you make your product even better.