The news got you down?
Is it hard to read, let alone write, a blog post about anything professional?
Me, too. So here’s a no-AI story about what I believe is your ultimate power.
If you’re a Product Manager.
…
“All these jewels are caked in dust!”
Picking up the tiny oil lamp, your eyes dart fervently around as you silently wonder if you said that out loud.
“This is the type of thing a genie would come out of. Dang, I really gotta develop an inner monologue.”
Hopeless.
Digging out your handkerchief, religiously a part of your every-day-carry, you wipe… the sweat off your brow, and return the lamp.
“And return to my mundane life. I ain’t touchin’ that. With great power, comes great responsi- ooh! The Chicken ’n’ Rice food truck!”
Hopeless. And oddly specific.
Moments later, your friend finds this same lamp, squints as she picks it up, realizes the gift of that moment, and knows what to do.
“I’ll just dust this off with the microfiber cloth I religiously pack as a part of my every-day-carry. Did I say that out loud?”
No wonder you’re friends.
And, as you might expect for a story involving two product managers, one dusty oil lamp, and no shortage of spare fabric, there appears a genie.
But it’s a tiny oil lamp. So it’s a tiny genie. With a comically high-pitched voice for its grand, introductory statements. As you might expect.
“I. AM. THE GENIE. OF THE LAMP!” he squeaked, “AND I. HAVE. GREAT POWERS! Although hearing your thoughts shouldn’t be one of ‘em. Hint hint.”
Tight spaces make for tight jokes.
“I. SHALL GRANT. YOU WISHES! BUT!” he paused for dramatic effect, the contrasting silence having less of an effect because of his already short sentences, delivered as if he were out of breath. Poor guy.
“HERE. IS. THE TRADE-OFF!”
Already a naturally curious gal, and doing her best not to let loose a giggle at his adorable proclamations, your friend leans in closer. He’s spitting oddly specific bars that echo the essence of her product manager life. Oddly specific, indeed.
“YOUR WISHES. SHALL BE MANY. BUT. YOUR WISHES. SHALL BE SMALL. FOR AS LONG. AS YOU HOLD. THE LAMP!”
Already an action-oriented gal, and hungry, she carries the lamp over to where you’re standing, stooped over, scarfing chicken ’n’ rice into your pie hole, reminiscent of how Cookie Monster ‘eats’ a cookie.
Hopeless.
Shielding herself from rogue rice grains, she tries out a Clean Language technique she learned from her Agile Coach, asking you, “What type of chicken ’n’ rice is that chicken ’n’ rice?”
Awkward.
You squint as you finish your mouthful and pause the shoveling. She squints back. You both hold the frame.
No wonder you’re friends. Just friends, though, right?
You finally respond, “I never order the chicken. It’s always the gyro, which is a lamb-beef combo that goes great with hot sauce back at the office, but I couldn’t wait, even though it’s not the best fit with my vegan, cross-fit, Atlantic-reading, crypto-trading lifestyle. Do these skinny jeans go with my square-toed shoes?”
Yep. Just friends.
“You have warm eyes behind those Foakleys,” she remarks aloud, “and Genie, I wish for a table to appear in front of this food truck, with different squirty bottles, each with a pointy tip, each squirting its own sauce, starting with a hot sauce, and… let’s also do a garlic sauce.”
Poof.
Feigning disinterest, like how your social media feed taught you the generationally wealthy act, you drown the remaining lunch in garlic sauce. As you might expect. From the generationally wealthy.
What you can’t hide, though, is the smile in your soul, out-shining all the suns in our galaxy.
What your friend shows, now, is the power of small changes to our world, an ultimate power, like that of all the suns in our galaxy.
What the genie knows, ugh, is just how banal the food is when passing through all the suns in our galaxy.
The garlic sauce on our planet is the best.
…
This is how I view you Product Managers: you have an ultimate power, and a great responsibility.
Your power? You craft offerings that nudge your target market to adopt different behaviour.
Your responsibility? Honour the objectives of the customer who pays the business, and of the business that pays you.
Put ‘em together? Offerings so humans do things differently, in ways deemed better, for both the demand & supply sides.
What’s missing?
Morality.
ASK YOURSELF. IF YOU SHOULD. BUILD THAT THING.
Like many little wishes, you are rewarded for taking chances to offer products or services to get people behaving differently. You are nudging our world to change.
This is how I view you Product Managers: you have a genie, and you get to change our world.
So as you engage with your different stakeholders, and develop empathy for your customer, also ask yourself: Is this change to our world GOOD? Or at least NOT BAD?
Garlic sauce, to be clear, is a world GOOD. As you might expect.