Gratitude Monday: #playingtowin

As you might imagine, after the utter shitshow that was last week in the United States, I had some gratitude challenges for today.

Actually, there’s more to it than the Christo-fascist decisions of SCOTUS, so I’m taking my gratitude practice in a slightly different direction.

About a year ago, the product management group I was in was dissolved and its PMs scattered. I ended up in a completely inappropriate “team”—operations—but I was doing what I’d been focusing on, which is collecting, analyzing and reporting customer and user feedback. But a few months back, when I talked about conducting my Voice of the Customer interviews, my manager threw a hissy fit.

“I don’t even have feedback as one of my goals!” she moaned. She tried to persuade me that she might be able to see her way clear to letting me do feedback maybe 20% of the time, but…I gave her a précis of what my work involved, and 20% was not going to cut it.

She was struggling with that, because she had these goals, and at some point she muttered, ”Feedback should belong in PM.”

I replied, “I don’t disagree. How should we pursue that?”

Well, it wasn’t what she’d expected, but she said she’d speak with her manager, the VP of Customer Success. That was in January.

Fast forward to three weeks ago, after I started conducting new rounds of VoC interviews, and VP sets up a call with me out of the blue to basically say that feedback belongs in PM, but that the SVP of PM thinks his PMs should be doing it and therefore doesn’t need another resource.

I agree—feedback belongs in PM, and in an ideal world, his PMs would be doing what I’m doing. But this world is far from ideal, and they have fulltime jobs without layering on my interviews. (I also manage win/loss analysis, beta programs and surveys; plus I Have Ideas.) Which is what I told VP in a conversation that—as is typical with him—ran over the allotted time by 37 minutes. (Among other things, I suggested that he could transfer my slot over to PM; he hesitated and then said no. Well, he totally can; he just wants the slot to hire another CSM or maybe a support rep.) The TL;DR is—if SVP can’t be persuaded that the value of what I do is sufficient for him to allocate a resource, or if I can’t find another position within the overall organization, I’ll be let go.

Well, then—I’m putting together a case for why they need feedback and why I’m the person they need to manage it; I have a strategy for meeting with the VP and the SVP to make that case in words of single syllables. And I’m careening between three emotions: anger, fear and the excitement of opportunity. Longtime readers will know how crap I am at selling myself; I broke that mold when I applied for the job that brought me to cybersecurity,. I concede that in the intervening years, I’ve got a bit complacent and reverted to my old ways of just being in the background. But this most recent experience has reminded me that #playingtowin has to be my goal, even if I end up having to leave this company.

(Toward that end, I have interviews this week with two prospects in the industry.)

TBH, I’m having to rein in the anger and fear, which is a challenge, and I have to say that the uncertainty is wearing me down. When my immediate manager (who presumably knows I have the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head) talks about prospective events six or 12 months down the road, it's all I can do to tell her to STFU. That, however, would not be productive, so I’m working with a couple of colleagues to roll-play my interaction with the VP. (You may have twigged that I rate him only marginally higher than a waste of space. It feels very risky to be transparent with someone who has a vested interest in not supporting my proposals, so I'm kind of at the cliff's edge.) I’m shooting for confidence, not contempt, so I need the practice.

So, while I’m not particularly thankful that I’m having to come up with matrices and PowerPoint presos, or to replace sarcasm in my voice with a smile, I am grateful that I have strengths to play to, sharp arrows in my quiver and good allies at my side.