Using Your Skills to Harm Others
You may not maliciously try to cause harm to others. But, if we misuse our skillsets to push our own agendas, it may end up causing harm to everyone involved.

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I got slapped in the face. Hard.
So it was a metaphorical slap in the face. But it still hurt.
I was listening to The Product Porch: The Dark Side of Product Management podcast episode, when I was put into my place.
(By the way, I HIGHLY recommend giving them a listen on your favorite podcasting app - it is an excellent use of your time, especially if you are in product management).
Throughout the episode, the hosts discuss different ways that product managers can misuse their influence and skillsets to get work done. Starting at the 20:00 minute mark, they share an example of which I have been guilty.
So what was the action?
I was leaving key stakeholders out of discussions because I felt they were too much of a blocker to our forward progress.
As the podcast hosts spoke about this action, they gave their opinion about what the ending would be, and they were spot on.
Their verdict:
It always ends badly, with the product launch often being derailed the night before its scheduled delivery.
How Did I Do This?
One of the chief officers of our company requested a feature. We discussed with him, and we recorded all of the requirements.
As we began to build the product, we spoke with other key stakeholders about the feature. They gave their input. Some of their input contradicted what we had originally received.
I made a few feeble attempts to get the chief officer’s input on the scope change. However, I never heard back from him. It became too burdensome for me to continue to try to chase him down. It was wasting my time and energy, and we had great input and feedback from the other stakeholders. So we adjusted our requirements to meet the needs of those stakeholders that were actively involved. I interpreted the chief officer’s lack of response as apathy and disinterest.
I was wrong.
The night before the launch of our feature, we had one final meeting to demonstrate the product to the team. The stakeholders that had been actively engaged in the product were satisfied and pushing for us to launch on schedule. However, the chief officer was in attendance and he disagreed completely.
The result?
Our product was delayed several weeks. Once it was actually delivered, user adoption was null. No one used it.
What does this mean?
The truth is that there are several factors that could have (and should have) been completed differently.
We could have sought for a better understanding of what we were building and why.
We could have built a leaner product in a faster time, wasting fewer resources and gaining valuable user feedback.
We could have marketed the product feature to our end users better, improving product adoption.
The list could go on.
But in the spirit of the podcast topic, I could have made a greater effort to include the chief officer in discussions. I knew that he was a key stakeholder, but I failed to exhaust all of my efforts to get his feedback. I got complacent and frustrated and gave up too soon.
In this example, I did not maliciously leave out the chief officer, but I still intentionally left him out nonetheless, to the detriment of everyone involved.
To my team, I am sorry for my actions which led to a waste of your time and talent.
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Was the product delayed because you had to implement changes from the Chief? I am trying to understand the sub-text for the resulting statement " Our product was delayed several weeks. Once it was actually delivered, user adoption was null. No one used it." Are you implying that because of the delay the users did not use it or was it because of changes from the Chief? This outcome could have come whether you had included his feedback or not. Seems like doing the three things you should have done differently would have saved the product not necessarily incorporating the feedback