Upon joining healthtech company One Drop as a product manager, Lisa Rickles made it a point to invest time in getting acquainted with a wide swath of colleagues.
“When I first joined One Drop, I got to know as many people as I could across all departments and asked about their goals and challenges in order to build rapport and understand the business context,” said Rickles, now a senior product manager.
Building strong relationships is foundational to success in any area of business. But being a product manager, it’s particularly important for Rickles. Why? It can help pave the way for what’s known as “influencing without authority” — that is, getting internal stakeholders (think: engineering, design and other cross-functional teams) aligned to push projects across the finish line without actually exercising oversight over them.
It’s a nuanced practice to pull off. Each department has its own set of priorities and needs, as well as ideas, as to how success might ultimately come together. The product manager must weigh these considerations while also being cognizant of the end user. Hence why, as Rickles’ anecdote recalls, abilities like relationship-building are key: They can power the collective effort behind keeping a cross-functional endeavor chugging along.
Additionally, Dina Solovey, senior product manager at online video platform Vimeo, emphasized the importance of understanding and empathizing with her colleagues’ perspectives. Doing so, she said, helps clarify what’s important to others and how she can give something in return.
“To get buy-in from other stakeholders, I try to understand what is important to them,” Solovey said. “I adapt the narrative to highlight why and how my idea will help them achieve their goal.”
Below, Solovey and Rickles outlined the finer points of “influencing without authority” with Built In NYC and the lessons they’ve gathered along the way.
“Influence comes with respect. A proven record of well-executed projects and good collaboration helps gain that,” said Dina Solovey, senior product manager at Vimeo, also emphasizing the need for “proactive relationship-building” to bring about success.
Exerting influence starts with a clear product vision. What are your key considerations when defining the product vision?
At Vimeo, product vision is defined by product leadership based on different inputs, one of which is cross-functional strategic groups. These groups identify and explore opportunities the company could pursue, where deciding against pursuing an initiative is just as critical. The input from strategic groups is informed by the vision and roadmaps of the product teams. When the overarching vision is presented and teams are aligned on a strategy, I distill the vision to my team and make sure strategic and tactical initiatives ladder up to the company product vision. I need to think about how to work with my team to make sure that we are focused on the right things and share an understanding on how this work contributes to the vision.
My team recently re-focused on scaling the product to enterprise offering. In the past, we were working on solving problems for individual users. Now, we have to change the way we approach problems and solutions for teams of different sizes. What helped was being crystal-clear on the following: What is the problem we are trying to solve? Who are we solving it for? How are we best-positioned to solve this problem? And what is our expected impact on the business?
What steps do you take to identify — and understand — the stakeholders you need to influence and then build good working relationships with those individuals?
I believe in proactive relationship-building. I pay attention to new hires and try to schedule quick meet-and-greets with new people. You might not work directly with those people for a long time, but when your paths cross, you both will have a familiar face in the room.
Prior to the pandemic, when we worked in the office, I often found myself waiting for the elevator with employees that I didn’t know. I started to say ‘hello’ and introduce myself. The awkwardness lasted 30 seconds, but I created connections that lasted way longer than an elevator ride.
When advocating for new ideas, I start with sharing it with my team during one-on-ones: that means engineers, designers and QA. They give feedback, poke holes in the narrative and bring in context that I might not be aware of. Never underestimate the power of bringing something to the team — they will challenge it and improve it in ways you can’t anticipate. To get buy-in from other stakeholders, I try to understand what is important to them. I adapt the narrative to highlight why and how my idea will help them achieve their goal.
Never underestimate the power of bringing something to the team — they will challenge it and improve it in ways you can’t anticipate.”
When it comes to influencing without authority, what’s been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned, and how have you applied that lesson in your work?
For me, the most valuable lesson has been to start really listening. Listening helps find fresh ideas, understand people’s motivations and inspirations. It’s easy to be caught up in everyday work tasks, but it’s crucial to connect with people and really pay attention to what is on their minds.
By “people,” I mean both our users and the colleagues I work with. I found that when I needed to influence a stakeholder, I was successful when I had a strong conviction in user needs and I had a team that was motivated to find solutions. Arriving at an understanding of user problems was a result of spending hours interviewing people and listening to what they have to say. Getting a motivated team was a result of providing a space and environment to openly share ideas and opinions, like hosting brainstorms and Friday team demos.
When it comes to “influencing without authority,” constant communication, one-on-ones and a collaborative mindset are just a few fundamentals to which Lisa Rickles, senior product manager at healthtech company One Drop, subscribes. “Investing time in getting to know my colleagues and ensuring early and frequent communication helps me build trust and sustain good relationships,” she said.
Exerting influence starts with a clear product vision. What are your key considerations when defining the product vision?
When defining a product vision, I consider the following questions:
Is it aspirational and inspiring? A product vision should be a long-term, aspirational goal for where the product is going in the future.
Is it clear and specific enough to drive a shared direction across the organization? The product vision serves as the north star that drives all the work that goes into product development. Once set, the product vision will translate into setting specific goals (e.g. OKRs) and enable everyone to have a shared sense of purpose and direction.
Lastly, what is the time frame? Setting a time frame in which the product vision should be achieved helps create a sense of accountability. Though lofty, the product vision should be still viewed by the organization as achievable.
For example, we defined our vision as follows: One Drop fills the gap between clinic visits and day-to-day life by giving you the daily decision-making support necessary to achieve good health and maintain healthy habits over the long term. In three years, One Drop will be THE choice for chronic condition prevention and management in the US.
What steps do you take to identify — and understand — the stakeholders you need to influence and then build good working relationships with those individuals?
When I first joined One Drop, I got to know as many people as I could across all departments and asked about their goals and challenges in order to build rapport and understand the business context. Of course, in a fast-growing company, getting to know new teammates and building relationships is continuous.
When I kick off a new project, I proactively think about all stakeholders who will need to be engaged, such as business lines, coaching, customer care, data science, behavior science and marketing, along with UX and engineering. I include them early in the product development process, inviting them into workshops to identify and prioritize problems and brainstorm potential solution ideas. I also invite them to listen in to user research so they can hear feedback firsthand and share their impressions.
Throughout the product development process, I prioritize ongoing communication via regular update meetings in order to share milestones and solicit input, as well as regular one-on-ones with key stakeholders to identify dependencies and collaborate. Investing time in getting to know my colleagues and ensuring early and frequent communication helps me build trust and sustain good relationships.
Investing time in getting to know my colleagues and ensuring early and frequent communication helps me build trust and sustain good relationships.”
When it comes to influencing without authority, what’s been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned, and how have you applied that lesson in your work?
When people have different viewpoints about the right path forward, they often have different mental models about how things work today or assumptions about what is going to happen in the future. One valuable lesson that I’ve learned is that it is really helpful to identify the underlying assumptions and logic that various team members hold and make those explicit. Once assumptions are explicit, we can make an informed decision to try to test that assumption or accept the risk that the assumption is wrong.
For example, when someone disagrees with an idea or plan I propose, I first listen very carefully to understand how they view the situation. I ask probing questions to understand their logical steps and underlying assumptions, and then I play back what I’ve heard. I also share my assumptions and logical steps, and we can figure out where the differences lie. More likely than not, both of our perspectives will shift, and we can brainstorm together how to de-risk assumptions, such as gathering additional data or conducting a small test for an idea.
