How Cross-Functional Leaders Align Product Management and Marketing Teams for Success

Collaboration between product management and marketing teams isn’t always seamless.?

As a team leader, what steps can you take to encourage collaboration, reduce friction, and reach new levels of business growth?

Let’s jump into some actionable strategies and tips for being a better cross-functional leader.

1. The Three Must-Haves for Better Cross-Functional Leaders

A great leader isn’t just about having a title or delegating responsibilities to the right people.?

You don’t need a leadership title to be a good cross-functional leader. You can step up from wherever you are and start to make an overall impact as soon as today.?

But what do all good cross-functional leaders have in common? To narrow it down to three essentials: strategy, empathy, and ownership.

Strategic, Big-Picture Thinking

Leaders need to see the big picture. They need to understand company health, revenue, P&L, goals, segmentation, and who needs to work on what to elevate the company to greater business growth.?

To be clear, this isn’t a solo mission. Great leaders understand this and know how to help their teams get focused on specific goals, as well as help them understand the why behind them.?

After all, the best way to drive product team growth is to get these teams to work together. Alignment to meet shared goals makes this possible, as well as creating systems that open up the lines of communication (with shared language).

Empathy and Other Soft Skills

Of course, strategies only get you so far, and you can have the greatest strategic mind but still be a poor cross-functional leader if you don’t know how to be empathetic and connect with others.

The key is to be able to foster trust and collaboration. You can’t do that by being overly focused on yourself or by failing to listen to what your team members are saying. Are you actively listening when they’re sharing with you? Are you able to put yourself in their shoes to see their perspective??

If you can master these soft skills (and you CAN work on them!), you can make a huge difference in how well teams work together.

The Ownership Mentality

If there’s a problem somewhere in the business, good leaders will find a way to address it rather than leaving it for somebody else to deal with.?

Yes, some functions can address problems more effectively than others. That’s why leaders know they need to actively partner with the right people to address these challenges swiftly.

2. Creating Revenue Agents Out of Your Product Teams

Cross-functional product leaders need the mindset that they need to own their revenue numbers.?

Great leaders spur their product team members on to prioritize hitting specific revenue goals. They do this through strategic, big-picture thinking and daily execution.

Strategic Planning

Just like we discussed big-picture thinking, the key is to have the full company profile in mind. Good leaders should understand the full financial picture in order to make meaningful, profitable decisions.?

This overarching view is important to get teams on the same page about reaching revenue goals, so the company can grow sustainably and everybody wins.?

Again, the hardest part might be translating all of this high-level information into actionable goals for your product teams. That’s why great leaders know how to effectively equip their teams with the most relevant information so they can focus on creating ROI-driven product initiatives.

Daily Execution

The other side of that is to ensure teams are executing these initiatives and using their day-to-day time wisely.?

To be clear, this is not encouraging micromanagement. However, you do want to see that the actions of your teams are steadily moving towards these revenue goals. Even if these efforts are slow-going, that’s fine. The key is that they are moving one step at a time in the right direction every day. It’s not always going to be about big wins, so don’t be afraid to encourage your team and occasionally shift focus where necessary.

Why Product Launches are Like Rocket Launches

Great cross-functional leaders treat product launches like rocket launches.?

A successful rocket launch is never the result of only one person. Instead, it’s a highly collaborative effort that requires scores of engineers, mission control, ground support, communication teams, scientists, safety officers, and more.?

When these teams come together to launch a rocket, they don’t celebrate as soon as the rocket has liftoff. Their mission isn’t successful until the rocket reaches “escape velocity,” at which point they’ll enjoy a well-earned celebration.?

Some product teams tend to celebrate the release of every feature. But if we want to learn from our rocket-launching counterparts, we might hold off on celebrating until the product reaches escape velocity, and starts converting into revenue.

The Five C’s of Product Management

With the basics of good cross-functional leadership established, how do you refine your skills in product management? If you can focus on the five C’s of product management and execute these principles, you will be able to reach new levels of alignment and effective collaboration.

1. Curiosity: Stay curious about customer pain points, creative ways to reach goals, and always encourage your teams to be curious-minded. And open-minded, as well, especially to new ideas or ways of doing things. Just because you’ve always done something one way doesn’t mean there aren’t other, more efficient ways to do so.
2. Conviction: Build confidence in prioritizing initiatives based on adding value to your customers. This has to come from a deep-down desire to make a difference for the customer. If you lose sight of this, you won’t be able to align teams or drive progress.
3. Clear-Eyed Perspective: Focus on reality over what you want to see so you can prioritize high-impact actions and solutions. The key is not to get overly fixated on an approach, problem, or viewpoint but to see everything as it is. Again, if your vision for a product winds up disconnected from what the customer actually wants, your product will fail.
4. Culture of Craftsmanship: Like a craftsperson, strive for excellence in everything, treating every task with purpose. They build beautiful things with great intention and take the time to get it right. You and your team can do the same and this will help your product stand out these days.
5. Culture of High Say Do Ratio: Foster accountability and help teams to do what they say, matching words with actions and meeting (and even exceeding) their commitments. This is a highly practical way to encourage ownership and it may help tremendously to incorporate this idea into your company culture so you can foster it and everybody can grow.

Overcoming Key Challenges Between Product and Marketing Teams

If you can address the biggest challenges that come with product team collaboration, you can reduce friction and stress. These challenges tend to be:

• Speed: Fast-paced environments can hinder effective communication. Ensure you create systems that allow teams to work efficiently and reduce miscommunication.
• Language: Different teams have different languages. By developing shared goals and vocabularies, you can more effectively align teams.
• Horizon Alignment: You don’t want different teams focused on different horizons. Set clear timelines and goals to avoid conflicts in how far teams see out.
• Trust: Just like sports teams have different positions and trust their players will perform, teams need to rely on each other’s expertise to reach common goals.
• Financial Understanding: Creating a unified vision around revenue goals can help to align product management and product marketing teams.

Start Driving Better Cross-Functional Collaboration Today

Remember—great leadership transcends titles. You’re ready to help drive cross-functional success as soon as you’re ready to start inspiring others, solving problems collaboratively, and focusing on driving a shared vision for success.?

If you can apply the insights and strategies shared here, you’re equipped to take your cross-functional leadership to the next level and help both teams achieve their fullest potential.

For more actionable solutions to everyday marketing challenges, check out this episode of the Real Talk Real Results podcast.

Watch now - https://shorturl.at/aqBSO