A Product Owner prioritizes the requirements in the backlog, specifies requirements ready for the next sprint and answers questions from development about the requirements that are being built. The focus is on optimizing development and working with the Development team
A Product Manager has a much broader role. From the long-term product strategy and roadmap to business cases, getting market insight, proposition development, sales support, product marketing, and fire-fighting. OK, other people in the business may do some of these activities but nevertheless, someone needs to have a joined-up and balanced view across all the different aspects of a product. Someone needs to be responsible for its success. That’s usually the Product Manager and they’re usually very busy.
So if anyone owns the product within the business it’s the Product Manager. It’s not the person managing the requirements – the Scrum ‘Product Owner’. No wonder people get confused.
Where the two roles differ completely is in authority. Product managers simply don’t have any direct authority over most of the things needed to make their products successful
Truly successful product leaders instead embrace their lack of authority and lead their teams and the wider company through communication, vision, and influence. They focus on collaborating across the company, bringing together the best people to move the product forward, and setting those teams free to execute on their product vision.
In Daniel Pink’s book To Sell is Human, he refers to this skill as the ability to “move” people from one mindset to another. Successful product managers and leaders spend a significant portion of their time engaged in these ‘moving’ activities, bringing everyone together around a shared understanding of the customer problem so that everyone can be involved in helping solve it to further the business goals.
Many entrepreneurs think that they have the perfect solution to an obvious problem. They mistakenly believe others will see it as they do. As a result, it becomes incredibly difficult to communicate the value in a way that others will understand. ...practice many times with people who have no exposure to what you do.
What do you do when someone you work with – even the CEO of the company – tells you something that’s demonstrably false?
The worst-case scenario is when your chief executive is the one in denial.
Our intuition is to confront colleagues suffering from the ostrich effect with the facts.
But research - and common sense, if the colleague is your supervisor - suggests that’s usually the wrong thing to do. That’s because when someone believes something we know to be false, some kind of emotional block is probably at play.
Research on a phenomenon called the backfire effect shows we tend to dig in our heels when we are presented with facts that cause us to feel bad about our identity, self-worth, worldview or group belonging. In some cases, presenting the facts actually backfires, causing people to develop a stronger attachment to incorrect beliefs. Moreover, we express anger at the person bringing us the message, a phenomenon researchers term “shoot the messenger.”
Rather than offering facts, your goal should be to show emotional leadership and try to figure out what are the emotional blocks inhibiting your colleague from seeing reality clearly. To do so, use curiosity and subtle questioning to figure out their values and goals and how they shape their perception of self-identity. And focus on deploying the emotional intelligence skill of empathy.
Once you understand your colleague’s goals and values, try to show you share them.
After placing yourself on the same side, building up trust and establishing an emotional connection, move on to the problem at hand: their emotional block.
The key here is to show them, without arousing a defensive or aggressive response, how their current truth denialism undermines their own goals in the long term. It can help to cite a prominent example of a business leader accepting difficult facts to move forward, such as how former Ford CEO Alan Mulally helped save the company through repeated course corrections. Research shows that offering positive reinforcement, without condescension, can be effective with colleagues and bosses alike.
https://theconversation.com/got-a-boss-who-denies-reality-a-behavioral-scientists-guide-to-tactful-truth-telling-87925
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Most of us get outside perspective -- but lots of CEOs don't! People around them don't always tell them the truth. That's when a CEO begins to drift away from the real world you and I are living in.
In brainstorming you toss ideas around and let the conversation go where it wants to go.
Later, you can evaluate each of the ideas you generated while brainstorming. You can look at each of your plans and projects through a practical lens and talk through possible obstacles to your success. In that mode, you do want to talk about hurdles and roadblocks. You must!
The more calmly and realistically you can anticipate problems and work to avoid them, the more successful your project will be.
When people disagree with a delusional CEO's opinions on any issue, he's likely to say "You people just don't understand my vision."
Here's what to do when this happens: Say "Maybe you're right! Can you lay out your vision for us again? We want to hear the latest version."
When people talk through their ideas, they may see the flaws in their thinking - and the rest of you in the room will have opportunities to interject comments like "That was a great summary, Dave -- how do you see the idea you floated this morning helping us make that vision real?"
Disconnected-from-reality CEOs engage in magical thinking. They leave planet earth very easily, and it's our job to bring them back down.
"You can't launch a product out of this team's divided energy," I told the CEO.
"You're the only person in this room who believes that consumers will pay that much money for this product, and even if you do sell a few units, you're opening the door wide for competitors to come in and sell a hundred times more units by giving up margin.
"What a waste of energy, not to mention customer goodwill! There's a lot more conversation that needs to happen here."
When a CEO devolves into an irrational state, he can begin to equate honest and well-meaning disagreement with disloyalty.
"Brad, I'm confused. You're accusing me of thwarting you or rooting for your downfall.
"If I felt that way, would I be here at seven-thirty at night, eating cold pizza, or would I be home with my family?"
You have to call B.S. on a CEO who tries to shut down essential conversations by shunning people who ask questions. That sort of dictatorial management style is meant to keep fearful sheep on the leadership team and send anyone with healthy self-esteem packing.
When you feel personally affronted that your boss would question your loyalty, I hope you will let your anger show. "If you actually think that I don't have your best interests at heart and that I work this hard just for my salary, just tell me and I will take my disloyal self somewhere else."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2015/07/02/five-signs-your-ceo-is-delusional/
