How do you manage competition among product managers?

New products or solutions tend to receive high levels of attention from Senior Leadership; with this focus can create great divide. Mid level managers are wise to continue to give the core product team the reminder that the vast majority of the sales come from the core products, and that the “sizzle” of new products can assist the core product sales from a pull through sales approach. Mid level managers are wise to celebrate the wins of the new product teams and refrain from using team division phrases like ‘they’ or ‘those guys’ or ‘the other team’. Competition can be positive and drive innovation and faster go-to-market product cycles; and it’s starts with Senior Leadership and the SLT focus.

One thing I have seen is linking performance to customer revenue, profitability and retention as the KPIs. Because these are more actionable than anything else and also easy to measure

In my experience, high-profile projects are often a major source of competition as they receive disproportionately high attention from senior management and resource allocation. This leads to a perception that securing such projects is crucial for career advancement within the company. In dysfunctional organizations, it is common for success metrics to emphasize individual achievements over team success, fostering a 'rockstar' culture which leads to counterproductive competition among product managers.

To manage competition among product managers effectively, it is important to foster collaboration and a healthy competitive spirit. This can be achieved by setting clear and aligned goals, encouraging collaboration among managers, recognizing and rewarding progress, facilitating learning and development opportunities, and fostering a feedback culture. Creating a supportive environment focused on personal growth and improvement helps ensure healthy competition and a cohesive team working towards the company's success.

Competition among product managers can be both healthy and detrimental to a company's success. It is important to strike a balance between encouraging healthy competition that drives innovation and collaboration, while also ensuring that it does not lead to negative behaviors such as sabotage or hoarding of resources. Effective management of competition among product managers involves setting clear goals and expectations, providing regular feedback and recognition for achievements, fostering a culture of teamwork and communication, and addressing any conflicts or issues promptly. Ultimately, a well-managed competitive environment can lead to increased productivity, creativity, and overall success for the organization.

A "common strategy" is often defined at the highest level, but it's common for it to be diluted and manipulated by the time it gets to a product manager, especially in an organization that sees their digital products as cost centers rather than profit drivers or efficiency enablers (this is how many enterprises view products). The traceability from corporate strategies and capability KPIs through intentional solution value hypotheses to product metrics (and other business operations metrics) is critical to ensure that product managers understand how they fit in and avoid competing with each other and their business counterparts (who all ultimately draw from the same funding pools).

Product is the voice of the customer, and customers don't care where your company has drawn product boundaries. The best way to manage competition among product managers is to define a clear, portfolio-based vision and strategy that resonates with both internal and external stakeholders. This living document ensures that everyone can see how their product fits into the holistic solution. In my experience, when good product managers understand the big picture strategy and see how customers positively respond, they naturally work hard to align their products and prioritize more collaboratively. Internal competition gets less focus. PMs focus on growing the overall pie for good customer outcomes, rather than carving out their slice.

Downsides of lack of shared vision and strategy: Some product management team cultures promote competition among team members to push innovation. As a result, team members often cut each other's messages. Therefore, XFN team members need a lot of help working with these PM team members. Over the long run, these teams fail to attain their mission and eventually get reorganized under new leadership.

I think, one thing that we can do to establish a shared vision is to put the right metrics. Because basically people behavior dependent to they are measured

Establishing a shared vision and strategy involves defining clear goals aligned with company values, encouraging collaboration, involving stakeholders, clarifying roles, regular communication, and maintaining adaptability to foster unity and purpose among product managers.

PM teams must have a growth mentality and embrace feedback as a gift. Feedback only during the performance reviews brings out the worst in people. When PMs learn from each other, there is harmony in the team, and people push each other positively to attain better performances.

If managers understand their position in two teams: one with their peers and one on the team they manage, than it will be easier for them to understand and contribute to a better organizational strategy and a collaborative culture (processes).

Cultivating a culture of feedback and learning is paramount for any team's success. It's not just about managing competition but fostering collaboration. By encouraging open dialogue, sharing insights, and embracing constructive criticism, we create an environment where everyone's strengths shine. In my experience this is the only way to turn around a faltering product team as well as stay ahead of the competition.

Fostering a culture of feedback and learning involves encouraging open communication, providing constructive feedback, leading by example, establishing regular feedback channels, recognizing learning efforts, supporting training, and embracing a mindset that sees failures as opportunities for growth.

This is one of the best approaches but requires two mandatory conditions in order to be effective and efficient same time: 1. organization should be organized into a functional structure rather than product oriented; 2. product managers should have PM skills

Encouraging collaboration and fostering cross-functional teams among product managers is a strategic approach with numerous positive impacts. Firstly, it facilitates a collective problem-solving environment where diverse perspectives merge, enhancing creativity and innovation. This collaborative synergy often results in more comprehensive solutions to complex challenges. Breaking down silos through cross-functional teams ensures efficient resource utilization, allowing product managers to pool their expertise, share information, and collectively contribute to the success of projects. This approach not only accelerates the development process but also leads to more holistic and customer-centric outcomes.

Encouraging collaboration and cross-functional teams involves promoting shared goals, facilitating communication, providing cross-functional training, embracing diverse skill sets, recognizing contributions, organizing team-building activities, and defining clear roles and responsibilities to enhance overall team efficiency and effectiveness.

This can tie back to my earlier comment - intentional traceability to higher level strategy enables you to incentivize strategic success (outcomes) over individual success (often only recognizable as outputs). This then incentivizes product managers to collaborate and work together to achieve shared outcomes. An interesting comparison is Warren Buffet's commentary on the government, when he said the best way to fix the nation budget is to prohibit reflection the federal budget is more than X% off balance by the end of the year. If you incentivize shared outcomes even polarized people are far more likely to work towards those outcomes.

While most product managers want to have their own discrete products, the reality of enterprise software is that the "products" are highly layered and matrixed. Siloed, unhelpful competition is reduced when: 1. Teamwork & collaboration are defined as clear, measured behaviors in your performance eval framework 2. PMs are asked to define and meet measurable goals that quantify acts and outcomes reliant on collaboration 3. Celebrations & public rewards highlight team outcomes, not individual outcomes

In commercial side, competition must be there, and normally it is encouraged by bonus. In order to avoid the unhealthy one, I normally put together different teams where you have the most “senior” that has absorbed Company values, working together with the new member for the same target. Sure bonus must be given as a team. I encouraged as well all together free time. It’s really really important, that in a Company all the people row in the same direction and if you have someone not able to do it, a peer can help him/her.

To reward teamwork and results, establish clear metrics, acknowledge team and individual efforts, provide tangible rewards, publicly recognize achievements, and cultivate a culture of ongoing appreciation, fostering motivation and excellence within the team.

In my experience, product managers flourish when their managers are able to guide and mentor while keeping a healthy reward mechanism is in place. Something I personally sought to implement for the product teams is a Centre for Excellence, a three pillar system where the managers can learn by being a mentee, teach and support by being a mentor and healthy rewards and recognition system for both. This allows managers to explore domains, learn, teach, develop a feedback loop and get rewarded for their work.

To provide effective coaching and mentoring, identify individual needs, establish clear objectives, offer regular feedback, encourage skill development, foster open communication, lead by example, and provide access to resources. This approach facilitates the professional growth and development of team members.

A company that plays the talent game makes it harder for people to practice growth-mindset thinking and behavior, such as sharing information, collaborating, innovating, seeking feedback, or admitting errors. To remain on growth zone, we must reflect, identify & work with these triggers.With my experience I can say I have benefited from learning to recognize when my fixed-mindset “persona” shows up to feel threatened or defensive.Over time I have learned as I pursue challenging goals. It’s hard work,but individuals and organizations can gain a lot by deepening their understanding of growth-mindset concepts and how to put them into practice. It gives a richer sense of who they are, what they stand for, and how they want to move forward

I am more of a mercenary capitalist, so speak from the perspective that the market will determine who is “winning” in choices made by product managers. Internal competition is healthy to the extent of where cultural entropy begins; so, to foster that healthy side and keep them focused, gamification of their success is an option. Reveal the relevance of their decisions through market feedback and sales metrics, and unite them through that common enemy. Make the competition relevant to the market performance of their products. Ultimately, the market is the grand leveler, so they should be focused on the external competitive landscape.