Great Product Managers Go Deeper

Hey I’m Ant and welcome to my newsletter where you will find practical lessons on building Products, Businesses and being a better Leader

You might have missed these recent posts:

- Product Strategy Should Be Messy
- Product Discovery Should Speed Up Delivery, NOT Slow it Down
- Data-Informed NOT Data -driven

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This post will help you build better products by truly empathizing with your customers.

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Here's why I'm skeptical on AI.

That's not to say I don't think it's going to have a material impact on our world — I think it will — but just because something can be done with AI doesn't mean it's going to provide the same value.

Hear me out... (and I totally recognise not everyone is going to agree with me on this one!)

Here's a stat that might blow your mind;

The number of independent agents in the US has grown from 45,000 in the late 90s to more than 105,000 in early 2020, before the pandemic — that's more than a 230% increase! (reference '​The Jolt Effect​').

"Revenues were also up significantly, with nearly one-third of all trips booked via travel agents." - The Jolt Effect

In fact, ​predictions​ are that in person travel agents will see their market share grow (yes you read that correctly — GROW!) by 5% before 2026, over taking online travel agents (OTAs) which will respectively see their market share shrink by 1%.

I know what you're thinking, surely that can't be true!

But here's the thing.

Assuming that the internet would replace travel agents is a very transactional way of thinking about the problem space.

Yes the internet has surely disrupted the industry and has had a profound impact to our lives (which I believe AI will too) but just as many assumed it would replace travel agents (and other industries) when that hasn't been the case.

Great products aren't the result of this line of thinking (the ​Dot Com boom​ was). Instead, they're the result of going deeper.

Emotional > Functional

Functional level thinking is only scratching the surface.

Great product builders design products not around what's happening at the surface but based on the deep, core motivators.

Yes the internet provided a better alternative for the functional elements of travel agents (i.e. booking flights and accomodation) but it could not replace the ​intangible elements​.

Things like:

• Trust

• Reliability

• Authenticity

• Peace of mind

• Service and care

• Dealing with complexity

• Tailored advice and recommendations

• and of course, time!

Exceptional product people know this. They dig for these motives.

That's not to say that there isn't a place for a more convenient functional alternative — there is — but great product people wouldn't be under the illusion that it would replace the whole market because they know human behaviour is far more complex.

Going to this level of depth can also drive innovation.

I used Uber as an example in the video below (which was a snippet from a coaching call, hence the bad-hair-day 😅)

Imagine you're Uber of some other transport alternative and you're trying to address the problem or making transport more reliable.

You've spoken to a bunch of customers and it's pretty clear that a major frustration is when their ride arrives late.

Now, many product builders would stop at this surface level and they say, "well we need to make our drivers 99.9% reliable". That every ride turns up on exactly on time, every time!

Now solving that problem would be extremely expensive and possibly near impossible.

But great product people would tackle this differently.

They would dig deeper and ask a more fundamental question; "why would rides arriving be frustrating?"..."what is the cause of frustration here?"

And they would dig, not for a surface level answer like "because I'm late to my appointment" but for something truly core and emotional.

Because if you dig deep enough you'll realise that the core problem is uncertainty, more often than arriving late or anything like that.

Sure, those problems do occur but the uncertainty of knowing whether you're going to be waiting 4 minutes or 6 minutes is completely different psychologically. It induces stress!

This is why Uber's map was such a game-changing feature.

Also why most modern rail networks in cities have screens that tell you when the next rain will arrive.

Solving uncertainty is much easier than making transport 99.9% reliable.

Empathy is "feeling bad the same way your customers feel bad"

I really liked how Nan Yu, Head of Product @ Linear framed it on ​Lenny's podcast​:

"My goal is to feel bad in the same way customers feel bad."

Nan Yu gives a great example of this in practice (it's worth listening to these 2 minutes of the interview. Clipped here for you convenience):

[Customer] "I can't accomplish this goal."

[Nan] "so what?"

[Customer] "so I am not going to get promoted at work"

And yes, doing something because you're not going to be promoted is a very real scenario, especially for the B2B (business-to-business) product space.

Ever wondered why big consultancies are so successful?

It's not because they delivery amazing outcomes or give great advice - that's what we think.

It's because they sell accountability.

Ever heard the saying "no one gets fired for hiring McKinsey?"

The problem they solve is "I don't want to lose my job".

It's the ability for the CEO to say it was McKinsey's fault when things go wrong. And don't worry they'll also take the opportunity to fire McKinsey too so they can look extra good (never mind the fact they were the one who hired them in the first place!).

So being a more competent or better alternative to McKinsey in terms of outcomes and expertise is great, but it's not what their customers are buying!

What are your customers REALLY buying?

A great example of this in practice is the story of how Clayton Christensen developed his famous ​Jobs to Be Done Theory​ (which many of you are probably familiar with).

Christensen's team studied the buyers of milkshakes at McDonald's in the 90s.

It would have been easy for them to assume that those buying milkshakes wanted something to drink or because of the taste.

In fact, I'm sure if they had asked customers they would have gotten those responses.

But when Christensen's team dug deeper they realised that many buyers were purchasing milkshakes not because of taste or because they were thirsty, I'm sure they were contributing factors, but because they wanted something to do on their daily drive!

Christensen coined this approach as '​Jobs to be Done Theory​' as it's focused not on understanding your customers, but instead understanding the 'job' your customers are hiring your product to solve.

Cycling back to the McKinsey/big consultancy example I mentioned before, the job executives hire a Big 4 consultancy for is 'deniability' — the ability to protect their jobs and bonuses by shifting accountability.

Now that might seem very selfish but here's some realities when you're at that level:

• Losing your bonus could be millions, if not 10s of millions of dollars.

• Losing your job could mean losing (again) a million dollar a year salary.

• The higher you climb up the org chart the less roles there are. Even fewer which might pay the same level of compensation. So losing your job could mean being out of work for some time, needing to take a pay cut or being forced into early retirement.

When you consider that they might have a family, large mortgage, etc you can (hopefully) start to empathize with how someone might want to protect themselves from that downside.

You could say this is the difference between understanding your customers and truly empathising with them!

In Practice

Too many companies and product teams I see are stuck at the surface level.

They may be taking a ​data-informed​ approach but the data is too shallow — they haven't dug deep enough!

The truth is human behaviour is complex.

And since we build products for people, if we want to build exceptional experiences, the only way is getting to this level of depth.

It's the reason why 5 star hotels haven't replaced all their door-people with automatic doors. Sure that could save the millions but it assumes their value is purely functional (opening a door).

If you take anything away from this post, I hope it's inspired you to dig deeper. To dig past the functional elements and into the more emotional ones.

Leverage techniques like JTBD to understand the true job your customers are hiring your product for.

Doing so will ensure that you don't just understand your customers, build you've built real empathy with them.

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I hope this post was valuable.

It's been a topic that has been on my mind a lot of late — especially with all this talk of AI — but also with my clients.

I've seen too many product teams fall into this pattern of shallow thinking and data.

True empathy is getting deep.

It's also why I maintain that learning psychology and particularly behavioural economics has been one of the highest leverage things I’ve done as a Product Manager.

Every problem in product is a human problem. It should be a no-brained to understand human behaviour.

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