The biggest professional challenge in product manager's career: Communication

Four and a half years ago, I gave up my position as Google's product manager and joined the Redpoint team. It was this time that I was challenged by a series of professional challenges in my career. I suddenly became a member of a small team, and my work was filled with a lot of unclear management content, time allocation, and business decisions, all of this quickly lost my curiosity and excitement about the new environment.

But the biggest challenge is the efficiency of data communication. I can't come up with convincing conclusions in my own language. In the first few weeks, I felt like I was a kid who was still learning languages. Everything that works on Google could not work on Redpoint.

Where is the problem? I asked myself angrily and felt that I was not competent enough. However, when I was at Google, I once explained to corporate managers and even higher-level decision makers dozens of times that I have never seen such a situation.

In desperation, I tried the last way-to ask for help from friends who work in consulting companies. After all, the consultants are well-founded, and they should have some experience in dealing with leaders in various disciplines, industries, and levels.

A friend gave me a book, and later I found that this book "Pyramid Principle" (MPP) is called the Bible of the consulting industry. MPP is a book that guides people to design patterns to establish arguments. It mainly talks about how to build a solid demonstration system step by step from the Foundation as a computer programmer.

After reading this book, I realized my mistake: the communication methods that Google and Redpoint are used to are completely at two extremes. Google prefers engineer-style communication, that is, organizing language expressions from a scientific perspective. What I want to do when selling new products is to throw out observation data, product expectations, experiment design, experiment results and comprehensive conclusions in sequence. The discussion focuses on experiment design, result deviation, and impact on conclusions.

The opposite structure is called the inverted pyramid, which is usually used by the news industry, as is Redpoint. Its feature is that everything starts from the conclusion and the whole implementation process is reversed. Starting from the conclusion, enterprises need to decide whether to invest time and effort in the project. If the partner needs more details, they will take the initiative to propose. The concept of inverted pyramid has long been new, but in my eyes, it is a world that has never been seen.

After several years of transition from scientific methodology to Inverted pyramid theory, I have come to the conclusion that there is still a new field that conforms to both features, where all decisions are based on the product audience. This is the case for technical dialogs and discussions around product design, engineering design, or other projects originating from scientific methodologies. These topics require in-depth analysis and integration with the background of the times.

However, most other types of conversations, such as internal communication or public communication, should follow all simple and focused approaches. Otherwise, the conclusions will be overwhelmed by chaotic debates.

Some founders, product managers, and engineers can change their positions freely between the two communication methods. I call them masters of communication, obviously, they grasp the two most important languages in the business environment. In retrospect, I think many of the most outstanding leaders have the same capabilities.

I have been dealing with the inverted pyramid theory for four years, and I am still grateful to my friends who gave me the book. Every time I write an article, sort out a memorandum, or make a speech at a board meeting, I use it as a basic principle. I hope that readers and friends can discover its value and benefit from it just like me.

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