Debunking a myth: Product Managers have all the Responsibility but zero Authority
I'm sure you've heard this one, and seen the memes. It's bovine excrement.
There’s the thing that goes around product management circles, where PMs are said to have all the responsibility and none of the authority. It’s catchy, creates a sort of inside-truth, us-vs-them mentality, that unifies product managers by sharing the pain.
The problem? Like most sound-bytes and slogans, it sounds good but the drastic over-simplification renders it utter BS.
First, some perspective
Say I hire you as a PM, and put you in a team with five others (developers, designers, SREs, SMEs, whatever’s needed). I’m asking you to build stuff that supports and grows our business. Let’s do a bit of math.
Six people team, that’s a million dollars per year (at least). I’m telling YOU to spend that budget, and get me some ROI. How much returns? Well, the output of engineering is just one part of a product. You need to account for the whole go-to-market motion. That’s markets, sales, support, admin, etc. — easily triple people, and therefore triple the cost of salaries alone. More when you account for the costs of doing business.
So I’ve just bet a million dollar on you, my PM friend, that I’m hoping would get me six or more in return. Pressure much? You can see why business leaders are a tad anxious about this whole “Imma gonna talk to some users till we get some ideas and then fail a lot while we learn about something that might work enough for them to pay us” attitude. Executives, who’ve been in this business probably longer than you, bloody well want to see along the way that you’re spending that budget in ways that reduce their risk and maximise the chance of good returns.
On the other hand, anxieties aside, we just handed you that million dollars to spend. There’s an implicit level of trust that you could, potentially, get that ROI. If I trust you I’m at least going to listen to you, and that accounts for quite a bit.
Side Note: and when you’re under the pump and have too much to do and come to ask for just two more developers — that’s over $300K per annum, and I’ll want my $2m in returns. Sometimes asking for more resources creates a bigger problem. You should first demonstrate the consistent ROI with existing resources, before a company would consider investing more.
Second, What is Authority anyway?
That depends whether you ask sociologists, political scientists, lawyers, or people who list lists. But for our needs, let’s consider two main ones: formal and informal.
Formal authority in business is the right to direct people, to tell them what to do. This is direct management, with the authority to grant rewards (bonuses, promotions) or punishments (ultimately fire employees). This is the type that is referred to by that meme, it’s the one built-in to people management roles, and is also the least effective when it comes to leadership. When you have to exercise formal authorit, it’s often a bit too late, when other forms of influence (motivating, directing) have failed.
Side note — directing vs managing: both are important for a business, but place different emphasis. Managing people involves organizing, coordinating, and supervising employees' work, while directing people involves providing guidance, vision, and purpose to inspire and motivate them. It turns out that you can manage simple task workers, but you need to direct creatives & knowledge workers and people managers. Guess which side does product management sits on?
Informal authority, on the other hand, can stem from many sources. A key one for product managers is expertise. Are you the expert on your product? Do you have the anecdotes and data to tell a convincing story? Do you know your customers better than anyone else around? Have you coherently crafted a vision, and communicated the problem and solution to everyone?
Another type of informal authority can be yor social authority within the company. Have you built connections? Have you been empathetic and helpful? Even the fact that you have been given a product to manage places you in a position of authority — how many other people have a voice on how to spend a million dollars a year?
When we say a product manager needs to “influence” others around their product, we mean they rely on their informal authority. They don’t have direct line-management authority over the team mostly becauase that’s a full-time job in itself. We want the PM to have enough time to do all the customer interviews, market research, design sessions, solution brainstorming, product collateral for go-to-market delivery and the million other things, and encumbering them with people management is simply too much. But that doesn’t mean we don’t give them authority — a trust in their ability to exert influence and direct people for the best outcome to the company.
So next time you see those “all responsibility, zero authority” memes running around, instead of nodding in commiseration remind yourself of the trust placed in you, the responsibility given to you, and the tools at your disposal. You have far more agency than you think you do.
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