Business Communication

Hi Guys, I am a self taught product manager working in a B2B space. Recently, I have found myself in a situation where I have felt the need to elevate my communication skills. I am finding trouble talking to my bosses and convincing them about my ideas. Many times I felt like my boss was dismissing my ideas without paying a lot of attention to it. Upon introspecting, I feel that the reason could be that we have recently brought in a new PM with much effective communication skills. I have seen him handing over the user facing work to him. This is an upsetting experience for me and costing me self confidence. As fellow product managers, I want to seek help from you. Can you please share your valuable advice for handling such situations as well as learning better communication skills?

Aragorn_urf_Maverick

Accenture

21 days ago

Read Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

BlindNest

Stealth

21 days ago

Hey buddy, appreciate your advice. I'll surely read it and try to apply the learnings

BlindNest

Stealth

21 days ago

If you don't mind can you share your anecdotes on how it helped you. It would be nice to learn from your experience

VincentVega

Goldman Sachs

21 days ago

I too faced something similar. TBH, I still feel that I am not a good communicator, but getting better. Few things which helped me - - taking pause, deep breadth in between while speaking. - I always remember some phrases to convey certain situations like “playing devil’s advocate”, “circle back to my thought” etc etc. - Try to listen first. People who don’t feel super confident in speaking are usually not good listeners as well…cuz they are usually focused on what they are going to say instead of listening. - Before responding, take 3 seconds pause. Structure your sentence and ensure that it’s crisp. - there are tons of videos available in YouTube which can help you. I found some of them useful, if you start practising diligently. - At home, record yourself talking. You will notice some gaps or weaknesses. Start working on those.

BlindNest

Stealth

21 days ago

Thanks a lot VincentVega. I genuinely appreciate you sharing your experience. I do notice some of the habits mentioned above. Something like empathic listening is not a habit and I'm practicing it actively to make it a habit. Additionally, I have learned that I am put into situations where I have to express opinions on nuanced topics, where I have not been able to communicate because the ideas are muddy in my head. I'm learning to dump such ideas on the storyboard so that I can structure them and also present them to seniors.