In A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, Daniel Pink describes the changes that are happening in the economy of the new millennium the realities of Asia, Abundance, and Automation and suggests that we need to start thinking differently, to change our minds, from a left-brain centered approach to a whole-brain approach to succeed in the face of these changes.

He specifically describes and investigates six qualities or ways of thinking that embody this R (or “right brain”)-oriented approach: story, design, symphony (or gestalt/whole picture), empathy, meaning, and play.

This is perhaps old news at this point, when a book published in early 2005 can already seem dated by New Years 2006. But what I thought was most interesting from the perspective of product management is that the same set of qualities defines a good product manager. A skilled product manager brings these six qualities to bear everyday:

  • Empathy: We have to put ourselves alternately into the shoes of our customers, and represent them inside the walls of our office, and our development team, translating customer needs into technical activities that motivate the engineering team.
  • Story: Along with “meaning” (see below) this is the basic marketing activity, couching the technical capabilities of a product into a narrative that enables prospects to understand how their lives will improve if they buy.
  • Design: A product must be emotionally engaging to be successful, and design is a critical aspect for achieving this goal. The canonical example of an engaging product is the iPod it doesnt really play music any better than its competitors, but it looks and feels and interacts with the users in such a superior way that its success is no surprise.

    And emotional engagement is critical not just for consumer products. NetIQs AppManager system management product has consistently beaten its competitors in evaluations in large part because it’s a nicer tool with which to work. Its much easier to understand whats going on in your environment with AppManager than with other tools in its class. (It also helps that it works, unlike a number of competing tools which don’t in many cases!)

  • Symphony: I’m not thrilled with Pink’s term for this concept, which I prefer to call gestalt. But this is the concept that none of the pieces exist in isolation. Each has an effect on the other. So do decisions — no decision can be made simply on the basis of its impact on revenue, or whether it will help or hurt customers, or on the capabilities of the organization to implement the decision. All those different factors must be considered, weighed, and addressed in most PM decisions.
  • Meaning: In product management, this is most closely related to something we worry a lot about – or should – what does our product mean to the customer? This includes both the value proposition – the benefits the product provides – but also the other intangibles that make the customer buy our instead of our competitors’ products.
  • Play: Unfortunately, probably the least important of the six qualities for product managers — although Silicon Valley certainly has been full of Play since the dot-com boom.

Pink includes lots of stories to illustrate the various qualities, many of which are his personal experiences as a guinea pig for various experimenters. The book is a quick read, reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking in presenting an interpretation of the most up to date social science and business research, but more accessible.

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